Behind Stained Glass
by Mackenzie L
Summary: Companion piece to "Stained Glass Soul" — all additional chapters told from Carlisle's point of view. Hopeless Romantic Award Winner — Best Carlisle.
1. Behind Stained Glass: Table of Contents

**Behind Stained Glass**

**by Mackenzie L.**

_The purpose of this companion story is to reveal more background and insight to Stained Glass Soul. The chapters posted here deal with both Carlisle and Edward's thoughts throughout the story. _

_I update this story as Stained Glass Soul progresses, so if you are reading Stained Glass Soul, it would be beneficial to keep up with this story as well. I always make notes at the bottom of my chapters in Stained Glass Soul, so that readers don't miss when something complementary is added here. _

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**Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga belongs to Stephenie Meyer**

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Chapter Index

_Each of the chapters in Behind Stained Glass either takes place during or is somehow related to a specific chapter in Stained Glass Soul. Here are the chapters listed by their compatibility, for easy reference._

1. (Index)  
2. "Scarlet Salvation" — SGS, Chapter 4: "Left to Burn"  
3. "No Way to Rush a Miracle" — SGS, Chapter 15: "Carried Up the Stairs"  
4. "Peace Not As Powerful" — SGS, Chapter 19: "Flood Follows Drought"  
5. "In Shades of Gold" — SGS, Chapter 21: "Blood Test"  
6. "Caduceus" — SGS, Chapter 23: "The Music of Gratitude"  
7. "Annaliese" — SGS, Chapter 25: "A Nuisance Called Pneumonia"  
8. "The Fires of Heaven, The Waters of Hell" — SGS, Chapter 26: "Watch Her Wilt"  
9. "How Bright Does It Burn?" — SGS, Chapter 27: "The Dangers of Daydreams"  
10. "Peacock Blue Ink" — SGS, Chapter 28: "Much Needed Distractions"  
11. "If Only" — SGS, Chapter 29: "How Lovely the Scarlet Path"  
12. "A Taste of The Doctor's Medicine" — SGS, Chapter 31: "Untouchables"  
13. "The Worst Curse of All" — SGS, Chapter 34: "When it Rains it Pours"  
14. "An Exploration of the Heart" — SGS, Chapter 34: "When it Rains it Pours "  
15. "The Apology" — SGS, Chapter 35: "Silent Burn"  
16. "The Heart Grows Fonder" — SGS, Chapter 39: "The Blizzard Between Us"  
17. "The Warmest Welcome" — SGS, Chapter 40: "Piece by Piece"  
18. "Shepherd or Sheep" — SGS, Chapter 41: "Heart Shaped Soap"  
19. "Black Swans and Driftwood Dancers" — SGS, Chapter 42: "The Gifts Worth Giving"  
20. "The Missing Memory" — SGS, Chapter 43: "The Memory and the Music Box"  
21. "To Carve a Place in Her Heart" — SGS, Chapter 43: "The Memory and the Music Box"  
22. "Unmasked by Moonlight" — SGS, Chapter 44: "Hands in Harmony"  
23. "Why Candles are Holy" — SGS, Chapter 45: "Christmas by Candlelight, Part I"  
24. "Whims of a Miracle Worker" — SGS, Chapter 45: "Christmas by Candlelight, Part I"  
25. "A Breathtaking Blessing" — SGS, Chapter 46: "Christmas by Candlelight, Part II"  
26. "The Body is a Temple" — SGS, Chapter 47: "No Shame in a Safe Haven"  
27. "Wishing on Fireworks" — SGS, Chapter 48: "Seal this Contract"  
28. "A Dungeon with Velvet Curtains" — SGS, Chapter 49: "Where Art Thou Going?"  
29. "Of Roses and Baby's Breath" — SGS, Chapter 50: "Unlikely Valentine"  
30. "Hot Blooded Surrender" — SGS, Chapter 51: "As the Clouds Cry"  
31. "A Different Kind of Touch" — SGS, Chapter 52: "Slightly Incredible"  
32. "Much to Write About" — SGS, Chapter 53: "Laundry and Sunshine"  
33. "Leaving His Mark" — SGS, Chapter 54: "Thank You for the Dance"  
34. "Forever's Final Hour" — SGS, Chapter 55: "The Final Symbol"  
35. "Here I Leave My Heart" — SGS, Chapter 56: "Finding Faith"  
36. "Justice for the Lonely Soul" — SGS, Chapter 57: "Those Unheard are Sweeter"  
37. "Pure as Doves" — SGS, Chapter 58: "Belated Engagement"  
38. "Sealing the Wounds" — SGS, Chapter 59: "One Step Further"  
39. "Skipping Milestones" — SGS, Chapter 60: "Eternal Covenant"  
40. "Striking a Chord" — SGS, Chapter 61: "Never Close Enough"  
41. "The Last Supper" — SGS, Chapter 62: "Vows"  
42. "The Source of the Spark" — SGS, Chapter 63: "The Key and the Rose"  
43. "The Fire Unleashed" — SGS, Chapter 64: "The World Unlocked"


	2. Scarlet Salvation

**Scarlet Salvation **

_Here is the night Carlisle brings Esme to his house after finding her barely alive in the hospital morgue. "Chapter 4: Left to Burn" in __Stained Glass Soul__ shows this night from Esme's perspective. _

_Thank you to sarasticks for the inspiration._

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Every pulse thumping in his ear surges him forward, like a blond bullet gliding through the storm. The day is young, but the sky is dark, and everything is the opposite of what it should be.

He should not have taken this woman with him.

Oh, but he _had _to. How worse he would be now, arriving home in silence as the storm pressed on behind him. The keys would jingle like dull fairies in his pocket as he reached the front door. Every one of his footsteps would have reminded him of the empty heartbeat of his dying patient. His world would be gray and gleaming with guilt. He would have never forgiven himself for leaving her...but this was a hasty decision to make.

Her body was drenched in scintillating blood, her nightgown pasted close to his chest, the red blooming all through the fabric of his coat. He could feel it sticking to his skin beneath, sweet and spicy and sinful. Hot, like boiling water against his icy flesh.

The rain tried to cool him in his run, but nothing could save him from the cruel consumption of her fiery blood.

Running should have come easily for a vampire, but that morning it did not come easily for him.

Carlisle felt like a breathless, reckless refugee, sprinting home through the wind and woods with a dying damsel in his arms. His car had failed him in the flooded roads several miles back, but to carry a load as light and tempting as the one he now did was the worst it could have come to. His feet were like lead, and his mind was rushing, and he wondered if _she_ could feel what was happening to her...

That same unassuming sixteen-year-old nobody happened to be the very reason he was running for dear life. It was the life of another for which he was running.

She had been laying like a stranger on the beaten blood of her own body, so very much a distraught mother, so very much a raw rose that he simply had to have for himself.

Instinct wound Carlisle Cullen in her seductive clutches and sent him for a fierce rush of fate. The morgue was a place for the dead, and though her heart was barely beating, this ten-years-lost Esme was _so disgustingly alive. _

He had to have her, so he had taken her.

Now the branches ripped the clothes from their bodies, snagging Esme's matted caramel hair, and scratching her already bruised and bloodied face. Carlisle cursed Mother Nature for her careless cruelty to his precious cargo, but his feet only ran faster to escape.

Esme's blood was dripping down his sides now. He felt it tickling the tender scars on his neck, pooling from her mouth behind his ear. It was burning him.

He shifted Esme's body until she was cradled in his arms, but this was no better. Now he could see her face – her cold, beaten face – the face of a battered beauty.

His eyes steered away from the slow death staring back at him and fixed forward, propelling his path at greater speeds than he had ever dared to break before.

Carlisle had never run away from anything in this second life, but he felt the sickly thrill of some invisible beast gaining on him as he raced home. He felt like he was being chased by something – something that wanted to snatch this woman from his arms. But she was _his. _

The sounds he heard as he ran were terrifying. Swooping, whirling sounds of air being sliced straight through; crackling wooden fireworks as the trees around him snapped in half. And the sounds _he _was making... He hadn't been aware they were coming from him until now – the mordant growls paving a warm, visceral path through his chest, through his throat.

_This _was terrifying.

His eyes flickered down to the broken Esme in his arms – a tragic accident. His heart was pulsing harder and louder than a gunshot in an empty cave... But no, _he_ _had no heart. _

That heartbeat was _hers. _

His run set itself to the rhythm of her pulse, and he strived for every footfall to come faster than the rhythm she set. She was counting on him. She was begging him with every weak slosh of blood in her veins, every aromatic twist of her essence churning in his feral subconscious. The intolerable warmth of her plush human flesh was like the seductive hand of the devil, twisting his resolve with sadistic pressure.

The door was in sight.

That loosely bound rectangle of polished wood had never before looked so welcoming, so much like salvation.

Carlisle broke salvation.

The charge of his momentum did not spare him until he reached the upstairs hall. He called for Edward several times, desperately, his rain and blood soaked body beating with terror and excitement. He was so damned homesick for adrenaline.

Down her body went into the bed. His bed. It was the first place he thought to put her. Strange, considering the sofa had been much closer to the door...

His breath was beating in time with her heart as he hastily peeled away the soiled strips of her tattered nightgown from his clothes. Syrupy strings of ruby blood clung between their bodies, trying to connect them in some sad way before he tore them apart.

Carlisle settled on the bed beside his dying woman, thrashing the gossamer canopy curtains aside in a very un-doctorly manner to make room for himself at the edge. And then he allowed himself to look at her.

The skin of her face was mottled with blood and bruises in the different, colorful stages of healing. Her cheeks were like pink fondant and her eyelids were grayer than the stormiest of skies. Her veins boasted so many enticing shades of teal and sea blue, up and down her limp arms. Carlisle ripped her sleeves to get a better look at them...then he realized the action had been entirely unnecessary.

_Focus._

Steady surgeon's hands were shaking like strong white leaves as they felt over her body for all the broken bones. Her skin was slippery, and all the lace on her gown was distracting. There were too many broken bones to fix. He was too late.

_No, not too late. Not yet. _

He made sounds like a whining kitten, foreign to his own ears, as his fingers crawled up to her neck, exploring the disconcertingly soft crevices for signs of life. Her pulse was impressive and it almost made him weep with joy.

_There must have been something that could save her. _

Hesitant he was to leave her for even a second, but it had to be done. Carlisle stormed the house for every medically related item in his possession, gathered them up in his hands and spilled them all onto the bed beside her.

The lightning flashing outside unnerved him, and he wished fervently for the company of a lit candle to calm him.

But there was no time.

The empty scatter of pills peppered the floor; the liquid dollop of medicine spilled onto the sheets. He felt the temperature of her forehead though there was nothing he could do to ease the heat. She was fevered, but he had no cure.

Esme gurgled. Carlisle's eyes snapped up.

She hadn't formed a coherent word – this would have been the most wistfully impossible of all hopes – but she had made a _sound. _That incoherent gurgle was like the finest music to Carlisle's ear.

He was smiling. Like a damned fool, smiling in the midst of this self-induced chaos. Perhaps he had gone mad.

Perhaps it was her blood – a swerving scarlet swan in the shallow lake of his temptation.

She could be the end of him.

His smile melted at the thought.

The storm raged against the windows, and he shut the curtains on his way to the washroom sink. The water was freezing, but it would have to do. He soaked several towels and tossed them over his shoulders to carry back to her bedside. Every step he took on the carpet brought her pulse a little closer to life.

_Lub dub. Lub dub. _

Her heart was faint but glorious.

Carlisle growled at the thunder for interrupting the song of Esme's heartbeat.

He laid each moistened towel gently against her skin, swiping the crusted blood and grime from her forehead, her arms, her legs...

She was a destitute damsel, lax and limp, unresponsive to every one of his carefully measured ministrations. She was no patient; she was a rag doll.

_There must be more. There must be more a doctor could do to save her. _

As quickly as it had come, the storm was finally beginning to settle. The thunder purred and the lightning blinked. The sky was pale and empty...just like the face of the woman in his bed.

This would not be for nothing. He was determined. Her life would not end in this way. He could not spend the rest of his life, thinking back on this useless thrill, knowing there was one last thing he could do to preserve her.

Edward's steps were frantic in the foyer. He whispered his sire's name like it was a heathen's, and Carlisle cringed.

_"There is no hope for her, Carlisle. Don't be a fool," _he said in his deep and worldly young voice._ "That is a ripe piece of death you've brought home with you. Let her go."_

_Let her go. _

Carlisle paused, watching his resolution wave whimsically through the air. He reached up to catch it between his fingers, but they would not open. Instead, he exhaled the sweet toxin of Esme's ferociously feminine blood and wept in silence as he watched her taper into nothing.

The raindrops stopped, so suddenly – like happy children who froze at the harsh command of their father. He could hear the little pulsing, beating, fluttering sounds of Esme's body. The miracle of the human form faded before his immortal eyes as he had seen it so many times – every function, every minute complexity, the perseverance of every noble organ straining to prolong the seconds before death took its toll.

Carlisle smiled again. It was so odd to think this dismal sight could produce such a reaction, but he could not help it.

His fingers trembled against her cheek, pushed back her knotted hair, remembered the feel of soft teenage bruises that he had been so ridiculously pleased to tend to. His other hand lay protectively over the leg she had broken too many times. Better a fall from a tree than from a cliff.

Her plump violet lips were parted, breathing shallow, inconsequential breaths while the blood trickled down her chin.

His thumb smeared away the droplet of red, leaving behind a bright pink streak. In a disgraceful flash of instinct, he longed to lick it away.

Venom burst beneath his tongue, falsely anticipating that the bloodied mess on his bed was for him to consume, and he tore his eyes and hands away in disgust, closing the curtains over her body. She should not be looked upon with such criminality in her last moments.

He could not be a doctor for her anymore. He was nothing but a vampire now.

A very thirsty, very foolish vampire.

In the window, he saw his obsidian-eyed reflection and scoffed at the twinkling glow of his immortal skin. He wished the storm would come back to cover the evidence for his inhumanity. Instead, it had left behind a glorious sunset to penetrate the glass of the windows, and invade the walls of his very soul.

This was a day of failure he had to accept like every other. Edward had been right. A fool he was for bringing death home with him.

But she had been so _alive_. So alive for that moment he found her in the dank cellar of the morgue. She was a dove among crows, a beacon of life on a sea of death, an angel among corpses. She did not belong there.

Apparently God believed she did not belong _here _either.

Carlisle's fingers tentatively grazed the slick red cross around his neck, still numb as he gazed challengingly back at his reflected self. The room was practically golden now – the dust was dancing, the light was shining – such was God's preparation to take this destitute damsel and make her a queen in heaven.

Esme deserved heaven.

Carlisle tried to tell himself this. But even squeezing that tiny golden cross with all his might did not do much to convince him.

A doctor always took one final look at his patient before her death. It was natural, a morbid kind of curiosity that all men harbored. Carlisle wanted just one last look at his Esme – his sixteen-year-old turned woman in ten years overnight blood-emblazoned angel.

The curtains parted, filmy between his fingertips.

She was radiant.

Her eyes were open, just the tiniest slits to peer at the world around her – the world she would be leaving so soon. The gleam beneath her lashes was sharp like smoldering ember. She was almost..._alert. _

Oh, how he had wanted to speak to her, to say something of significance, to ask if she remembered him, if she knew he had tried to save her. But Carlisle knew such words would have failed him; such grandeur would have made him weep waterfalls when she was gone for good.

The God-forsaken sparks shining off of his skin in the dim red sun landed lovingly on her face, highlighting each fragile feature for his eyes to feast upon.

Two steps forward, and her heart picked up its pace.

Carlisle stopped and stared at the eyes before him. These weak lidded eyes that were so daring, so tempting, so crushing. It was like looking into the center of the earth – a place no man should ever have had the audacity to look.

There was a profound terror in Carlisle's heart, that if he were to turn around right this moment, he would come crumbling down to the floor in a useless pile of white salt.

This Esme was a powerful piece of death if there ever was one. And he was her shameless captor.

Thrilled into action, Carlisle poised himself on the edge of the mattress beside her thrumming body.

She was so..._everything _in that moment. So female, so desperate, so _human. _

And he was so male, so desperate, so _vampire. _

He was going to give her one last gift, whether she liked it or not. Whether he liked it or not. Whether _God _liked it or not.

_"The gift of eternal life is not mine to give... But God help me, I cannot stop myself from giving it to you, Esme."_

Hid words could not have withstood the weight of more truth.

Carlisle bent close, and inhaled the salty sting of her tears, the warm tartness of her flush, the pumping notes of her blood in her throat. He inhaled the love she had felt through her life, the loss she had suffered through, and the unfortunate cause of her demise.

He inhaled the devil and wondered why he could no longer exhale...

Carlisle heard nothing but Esme's heartbeat. Not the sound of his breath, not the last of the raindrops, not the tortured chant of his son in the cellar below... _"Don't do it. Don't do it. For Christ's sake, don't do it!" _

But it was for this woman's sake that he _did _do it.

He sliced through the pink fondant skin with his teeth and slid into the dreamy scarlet realm of her raging veins. He crept back out again and dove back in again – twice, three times, four times. His teeth were raping her veins.

Her cries began like a siren's silken song, and they were so much more satisfying than the wordless gurgling she'd uttered for him before. This was ecstasy for the starved, for the damned, for the ill of spirit. This was his soul being cradled in God's very hands.

He was taking and receiving...but she was not offering or giving. There was nothing remotely Christian about the concept, but Carlisle could _feel _God here, between the deepening link of his teeth and her flesh. Their connection was blinding, serenading him with all its potency, just _daring _him to break away, to throw dust on the magic that was boiling between them. A vampire and his sweet, submissive victim.

A vampire. Not a doctor. Never a doctor.

The woman named Esme was shrieking her pain for all the world to hear. The birds on the rooftop scattered in fear, and the wretched strum of Carlisle's frozen heartstrings chorded in minor tones. She was asking him to free her from this inhumane torture. This torture _he _had inflicted upon her. She was asking _her doctor _to save her from the demon who had bitten her.

Carlisle seethed with rage, triggered into feral defense by her pleas for help. But when he went to destroy the man who had granted her the dark gift that could not be returned, he came face to face with himself.

His reflection was an image of terror in her wide, glassy eyes. He was staring, not into the center of the earth, but the center of hell.

_What have I done? _

The room darkened around him, the sun hiding away from the terrible things he had unwittingly planned for the night. Hard, crushing sounds of bones being mended at despicably crude speeds hit him, echoing around the room in a sickening rhythm. Her heart was pummeling against her breast like a caged bird, her skin was glowing, her blood thinning, her limbs convulsing.

His gift was doing exactly what it had been called upon to do. His gift was destroying her death.

Her throat rattled with haunting shrieks, liquid reverberations casting over her voice with a chime of unfamiliarity. The venom always began with the vocal chords.

Carlisle cried at the foreign sounds, his head in his hands, his knees meeting the floor with a granite crack.

He prayed for Esme to be given mercy, but no prayer of his would be answered now. All because of one brief pulse of pride – one split second where God was below and not above him.

And now he would pay. And this beautiful, indestructible Esme would pay for the brashness of his one mistake.

A mistake it _was, _but Carlisle would spend the rest of eternity trying to prove to his God that it was meant to be.


	3. No Way to Rush a Miracle

**No Way to Rush a Miracle**

_This is the study piece I wrote up to detail Carlisle's realization of his feelings for Esme. Here I have also written a lot of what Carlisle saw during Esme's transformation, as well as his development of feelings for her from the day he changed her to the present time. _

_I've always had the idea in my head that Carlisle would have taken more time to put a name to his feelings than Esme would. I say this piece takes place somewhere between Chapters 15 and 18 of __Stained Glass Soul__. _

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There was something about her that drew him in like a moth to a candle flame.

Carlisle hated to use such a comparison, because he was _not _a moth, and Esme was certainly _not _a candle flame. He would have never surrendered himself to the level of fluttering mindlessly around her in a circle until she had burned him to ashes. But there was something dark about her, something intensely frightening about being with her that suggested he could have been in danger.

Esme was not dangerous. Even as a newborn vampire, he thought she was almost unnaturally tame. She may have thought her behavior during the first few days had been feral to say the least, but she had no idea. She was nothing like some of the other newborns he had seen. Even in her struggle, even with the animalistic sounds that poured forth from her lips, she was working so hard to hold herself back. He could feel the tension in her slight body as he held her; he was not doing all of the work himself.

She should not have made any apologies for being a burden to him, yet she did this incessantly. Esme was sorry_, _not because Carlisle had changed her, but because he had _selected her to change. _What she did not realize was that he would never have chosen any other person to offer this life.

At this point he still had no assumptions for what she might one day become. He had no plan, no clever course of action, no carefully detailed map for her future, be it with or without him. He had been embarrassingly brash in his decisions that night he found her. No normal doctor, no normal _man _for that matter would have stolen a woman's body from the morgue and raced home with her in his arms, and placed her in a bed, and tried to revive her for hours only to find that there was but one cure to her inevitable death.

No normal man would have bitten her to keep her alive.

She had just been like a little fire on the sheets – so uncontainable even if she was only lying there, still as a paper doll. She had looked so inconceivably _small _to him. So helpless, so child-like – even more than she had as his patient ten years back. He looked upon her, clearly, under the sunset on the evening he decided her fate, with no council but himself and his rioting conscience to come to this conclusion. It had bothered him that she looked like such a lost cause. Like she was not his property. Like he had stolen her and taken her home and placed her in his bed, even though she had not belonged to him.

This _had _been exactly what he had done.

Doctor Cullen thought himself a terrible man because of what he did, what he knew he would do. The cascading torment of a sin brewing in his stomach – it was unavoidable at that point. He knew this too well. There comes a moment where the soul knows it will sin, and it simply accepts the stain it will receive. But it never thinks of the consequences. Not until after the deed has been done. And by then it would be too late.

So he helplessly watched Esme's weak young body writhe and whimper through her agony. He watched her, and he was numb. Lost. Disgusted with himself.

But, Lord, beneath it all he was almost...thrilled. Excited. _Impressed_ with his brashness.

For once he had allowed himself to act upon impulse, and it was overwhelmingly electrifying.

He watched her shrieking under the sting of his venom like an infant might have watched a flock of butterflies. With wonder. With still, unmoving, widely opened eyes.

Her hair spiraling out in dark, syrupy curls. Her lips, already full enough, plumpening further like strawberry pillows. Her velvety skin being drained of its flush, the freckles and bruises and blemishes vanishing one by one like tiny shadows of stars fading from a fierce white sky...until he could hold his hand to her cheek and their flesh was the same.

His breath softened as the scent of her blood grew less and less potent, and the scent of his venom changed her, heightened her natural aroma and made it rich, sweet, intoxicating. Foreign. New.

It hit him like the sharp head of an arrow to his belly.

He was watching _creation. _

It made no sense for him to feel so pleased as he watched this woman suffer. It was like he knew she had a purpose. Even then, he knew he had _needed _to bring her into his life.

And, shameful as it was, he found such gratification knowing that he now, in a way, owned her. That _he himself, _Carlisle Cullen, had _created _her.

There was something indecent and even more thrilling in that he had created a _female _vampire.

It fascinated him when she opened her eyes and she saw him for the first time with her new eyes. She was afraid, and she was choking back venom because of her thirst. She had thought she had gone mad, and he assured her that she had not. She was uncontrollable but he had controlled her. He had taught her to control_ herself_.

Over time – and such a short time it was, looking back on it – Esme had found a balance in her new life. She had accepted her fate and did not think of her future as bleak. Her eyes were softest scarlet when she looked to him. No longer bloody daggers. No longer staring into his heart with a ruthlessly silent, "_How dare you?" _

She...trusted him.

And now he had this woman – this strange, intriguing little creature under his care. For the first month or so it was miraculous to hear her light footsteps in the hall, knowing these footsteps belonged to a female. He sometimes had to rest his hand from writing as he listened to her walking about. The sounds she made echoed gently inside of his chest, and when they stopped he realized he was still smiling.

Smiling because of...

Esme.

She was so oblivious to her own innocent seductiveness, and that was endlessly endearing to say the least.

She exhibited such shyness, such insecurity, such dependence, and she always wore her heart on her sleeve. Yet she was still so mysterious in way that plagued him to no end. She was still so much like the sixteen-year-old he had treated a decade ago.

It shamed Carlisle to say that he had not thought anything much about her back then. She had eyes for him, as they all did. So sadly accustomed was he to the sighs and stares that he had long since stopped making note of them altogether. Esme Platt had not been a patient of very special circumstance that caught his attention in any way other than the torment of a somewhat more potent blood-lust. There was pure serendipity in place of a defining revelation. He was charmed by her, but not affected...at least not on that night.

He thought of her often at first, for reasons he did not quite understand. During those days, he dismissed it as the ever-present wish for company. Esme had brightened that solitary stormy night he'd spent in rural Ohio. Carlisle was thankful for this, just as Esme may have been thankful for his stopping by to heal her.

The thoughts of her faded into the distance, just as they did with everyone else. They had to. He had to let go and move on.

It shamed Carlisle to say that seeing Esme's mangled body and face mutilated by bruises in the morgue a decade later had perhaps only shocked his pity, and nothing more. No, nothing more.

But now... Oh, now.

Now she was nothing but perplexing and lovely and delightfully infuriating. A riddle of flashing ruby eyes and foreign pheromones. He had known so many women, both vampire and human throughout his years, but none were this...captivating without reason.

Now he chose to engulf himself in that memory of first meeting the girl. He swallowed and savored every detail of that stormy evening with a magnifying glass of constrained emotion. Every word she had said to him (which had been few) meant something different each time he deigned to ponder it. Now he vigilantly noted those sighs and stares she had been kind enough to give to him. He made a list that was returned to with frequency. He was mildly obsessed with that teenage Esme. Sometimes she would show up in his house, in the form of a treacherously matured woman, and he was reminded of how he had injected such bland beauty into her once homely perfection.

Her eyes had once been the most innocent cedar, a dewy sparkle in the mild light. Her hair had been curled about her brow in fawn-colored ringlets, highlighted by the farmland sun. The tender pout of her ripe cherry lips was trembling. Her skin was like daisy petals; a cascade of freckles for her sunburned cheeks, the tip of her nose glowing a modest pink from crying.

She had been exactly what he had suspected – a child caught in the twisted bridge between youth and womanhood.

And how frustrating it was that she could not remember this one night in Columbus as he did. She had not a wink of significance to recall from the incident. It was natural that she should lose many of her human memories, and perhaps he should have been flattered that she had remembered him at all. But Carlisle could not help the disappointment he felt when he discovered just how little Esme did remember of their first meeting.

But, Lord, she still retained that very spark of innocent youth – that starry-eyed wonder from the throes of her adolescence.

Her eyes were curious by default, always searching, receptive. Her emotions were channeled with crystal clarity through her thoroughly expressive gaze, yet there was a darkness to her eyes that harbored so many secrets.

The sweet perfume of her scent cloistered itself inside his lungs and made him ache. It was fleeting and slightly timid, but so very jarring once he found it. He grasped onto it with needy fingers, but it slipped away from him and left him in the throes of gentlest pain. It was quiet but searing, warm and mysterious, quick to mystify and sometimes quick to scurry away. Just like her.

He had not expected to embrace this...attraction to her at all. His reason for changing her was one of pity and a brash accident – the tender lightning-bolt type of impulse that flares the mind into rushing without judgment – but in the end, perhaps, he had thought the choice over too much.

It was all happenstance that Esme had ended up under the same roof as he, and even more was the joy he felt when she showed no interest in leaving him even after the most difficult weeks had passed. As a newborn, Edward had been so different from Esme during those first weeks – unpredictable, indecisive. Even after the acceptance of his position, Carlisle still felt a tension surrounding his son, like he had been forced to remain in his company, like the boy chose only to stay out of pity for his sire.

But Esme made the choice without making it at all. She wanted to stay with Carlisle. She _wanted _that. His company. Him.

And it was precisely _that_ – her obvious _unshakable devotion _to him that inspired a mirrored reaction in his own heart.

By God, he would cling to this woman like a dreamer to a net full of struggling stars.

It positively stung to let her out of his sight.

He was fascinated by her peculiar habits – twirling locks of her hair around her finger, obsessively rearranging curtains or mantle-pieces for well over five minutes, wringing her hands whenever she was asked a simple question, the way she always seemed to be afraid of taking up space. She always situated herself in a way that pulled her limbs in, often hugging herself around her middle, pressing her legs together so tightly that one could see the strain there.

Whenever he smiled at her, she smiled back unfailingly. It was an instantaneous reflex, yet there was something almost like pain behind it. And that was what concerned him.

She possessed absolutely no pride. Esme was completely selfless in every sense of the word. She had a florid capacity to love unconditionally, but she had no outlet for it all. Was it so absurd to suggest that Edward and he would become willing targets?

She deserved a family – and not just a family, but more than that. She deserved to be loved, for she so clearly loved everyone around her. And for that, Carlisle found her achingly attractive, in an ironically innocent way. It was so easy to see that she did not think herself anything special, but that was what attracted him even more.

And an attraction it was, as much as he had tried to deny it. Carlisle tried to deny himself so many things, and with God's help he was nearly always successful in that denial. But this particular attraction had _attacked _him, and for once he could not deny it.

How had he let this happen?

His only answer was this: Perhaps God was _not_ helping him in this denial.

For the first time in over two centuries, Carlisle thought of how he might love a woman. More specifically, how he might love Esme_._

Would Esme still think herself worthless if he had offered her his heart? If he spoiled her, and worshipped her, and took care of her, and forced his love on her every day for the rest of eternity?

There was a compelling concept.

His tortured heart had its share of seemingly endless suffering. Now it had unwittingly collided with the heart of another – an uncontrollable yet tender emulsion.

He always wanted to be closer to her. Because every time he touched her, whether it was accidental or intentional, he felt like he was drinking straight sunshine.

He wanted her because she mystified him. She was so disastrously simple, but he could see the complexities buried deep within, stirring in her eyes.

It was the way she thought so little of herself, the way she was lacking in faith and self-confidence, the way she was so clearly suppressing her passions out of shyness. She was so deliciously dependent, and some part of him selfishly wished to be the one she came running to in all her moments of terror and sorrow.

Some part of him wanted to lift her tiny body into his arms and slowly kiss every precious feature of her lovely face. Some part of him wanted to twist his fingers in her flowing, caramel locks of hair, to touch her frosted lily cheeks, to feel her delicate hands pressed between his trustingly.

Some part of him wanted her to still be his patient. Because if he had her on his examination table, there was no way she could creep away from him. He could stare at her, prod at her, pick her apart until she was no longer a mystery to him, until he had diagnosed her for what she was.

Some part of him wanted to pluck the moon from its place in the sky, too. But some things we want cannot be ours.

Carlisle wanted Esme for reasons he could not name, for purposes he may have known but which remained so frighteningly foreign to him.

Only her. Perhaps that was all he wanted. Perhaps it was even all he needed.

Then he was reminded that he already had her.

She was right there in the next room, humming idly or pacing about, or doing any of the enchantingly odd things she sometimes did. If he wanted, bless his soul, he could walk right in and watch every move she made. He could be her constant witness, her spectral stalker.

Because this Esme, she practically _belonged_ to him.

Yet he had to consistently reassure himself that she would not leave him. She would not disappear. She would not shimmer away into a vapor that he could only hope to grasp.

Esme was not some struggling star in a dreamer's net.

She could no longer die.

He had given her this chance, and by some miracle she had accepted it. Whether this stubborn little seed of affection would one day blossom into true love, he could not yet know.

Because Carlisle knew as well as God Himself that there was no way to rush a miracle.


	4. Peace Not as Powerful

**Peace Not As Powerful**

_This is the discussion Edward and Carlisle had to address the suggestion that Charles Evenson could be "taken care of." This conversation occurs during "Chapter 19: Flood Follows Drought" in __Stained Glass Soul__, after Esme confides in Carlisle about her abusive husband, Charles Evenson, from her human life. Edward had already told Carlisle about Charles, so Carlisle was mindful of the fact that Esme had been abused. _

* * *

Esme ran a bath after hunting.

She wanted to erase all evidence of the scarlet on her hands, the sweet scent that clung to her hair and skin.

She was so much like _him. _

In a way, it made Carlisle comfortable knowing that his shame was shared. Their shame was all but gone completely in the hunt itself, yet when they returned – when they saw their house on the hill and were reminded that they lived here as people – something struck them.

They wanted things to be normal, despite knowing that they never could be. They still wanted this.

Carlisle left Esme alone in the house when she bathed. He had felt a stirring of something unwelcome the first time he'd heard her preparing for her bath, and from then on it was understood that he would simply depart when she did it. So far she had not noticed the pattern, and for that he was grateful.

Once the water started its soothing rush, Carlisle walked away from the house, still clad in clothes that were smarting with the seductive scents of forest and blood. And he did not stop walking until he reached the shore of the lake.

Lake Cordial was painfully still this morning.

No matter how Carlisle's feelings changed from day to day, that lake always seemed to reflect the emotions he felt inside. This moment before the onset of dawn was always a moment of stillness and silence. Usually it was a moment of peace. But the stillness of this morning was anything but peaceful.

His mind was still thrumming with the unthinkable history of the woman he cared for with a dangerous depth. Despite how aware he had been of the cause of her demise from Edward's revelations, hearing these things at last from _her _lips just made it all too painfully real.

_"He was the reason my son did not live longer than a day..._ _He was the reason I jumped..."_

Carlisle's mind rang with Esme's solemn words, and every time he repeated the sentence, his stomach twisted in disgust. The fire in his throat longed to drink the blood of the tainted man she once called her husband. His hands ached to rip the limbs from the one who had stolen her honor.

Carlisle had never dared to entertain such violent thoughts before. There had never been a man who had angered him, offended him, enraged him as much as Charles Evenson...and he had never so much as seen the man's face before.

Carlisle was disturbed by this sensation of _wanting_ violence. It was like wanting blood, but more carnal, more personal. He didn't actually _need _it...and this made his want ten times as strong.

As he stared out at the glassy lake, he saw not a single ripple to quell his desires. All he could see were the satisfying images of a faceless man, bleeding to death by his feet.

"She told you," the voice of his son stabbed the silence.

Without turning to face him, Carlisle answered through his mind.

_Yes. _

Edward glanced back at the house, listening for any indication that Esme was eavesdropping. Finding nothing but the blissful murmur of bathwater, he continued in a softer voice.

"She has trouble remembering."

_As it should be. _

Edward had never seen his father standing so still. Carlisle was the most human of all the vampires Edward had known, and yet now the blond doctor looked to be nothing more than a slab of man-shaped marble with unmoving eyes.

But the thoughts behind those eyes were anything but still.

It was a fanfare of feral passion. Slices of sharp-edged surgical instruments held to a headless throat. The thick, rubbery gush of teeth cutting into flesh. Hands that ripped a body apart uncontrollably, tossing the limbs aside as if they were splinters of plywood. The fantasies were punctuated by lingering spurts of blackness, nested between moments of safety where conscience would intervene with a hilariously gentle tenor. But then the chaos would hit him again.

"So when do you want to do it?" Edward asked darkly.

The chaos screeched to an abrupt halt.

_Edward, that is awfully presumptuous of you to suggest..._

"I beg your pardon," the boy muttered sarcastically. "You seemed fairly enthusiastic at the thought."

Carlisle was stricken.

_You should not have to hear this... I cannot believe I am entertaining such despicable thoughts, son. _

Edward was bemused. "That makes two of us."

_I do not even know the man, but just knowing what he has done to her..._

Teeth. Knife. Neck.

"It's enough, Carlisle," Edward resolved. "For God's sake, just seize the feeling. It's a part of what you are, so why suppress it?"

_How can you say that? _

But the doctor's thoughts were a lustful battle of gorgeous blood and gore. Still, he did not stare at his son. His eyes were too ashamed to meet the gaze of another when his mind was throttled by sin.

Unable to withstand any more righteous trickery, Edward made the offer.

"We could do it, you know."

A burst of bright appeal rushed into Carlisle's heart at the confirmation.

_I know. But that does not mean it should be done._

But Edward's excitement was uncontainable; his half-shaped plans began spilling urgently before he could think them through. "I could stay here and watch her. You could say you were needed overnight at the hospital for a few days. She wouldn't even have to know what was really going on if you didn't want her to."

Carlisle clutched his midriff as a sudden wave of strangely pleasurable illness crept into his belly.

_Do not tempt me in this way, son. This is something to struggle with, not savor._

But Edward's devotion was fierce. "Then let _me _go. I'll take care of it all. You can tell Esme it was my idea. She deserves justice, whether she knows it or not."

The air went cold as Edward struck a chord.

_Justice is the concern of God alone!_

Edward had known it was coming, but Carlisle's sudden shout of righteous triumph was still oddly shocking.

"But how does He work this justice into the world, Carlisle?" Edward questioned rhetorically, and without so much as a pause, he answered himself in earnest, "Through _our _hands!"

A part of the doctor was breaking down. It was painful but so fascinating to watch.

_Stop. Please. _

"I can see that you want this," Edward pressed, his voice seductively soothing. "I'd venture to say you've never wanted anything so badly before."

_That is because I know that I cannot have it. _

"But, Carlisle, you _can _have this. All you need to do is let go."

But once Carlisle's fingers found the cross around his neck, he did not let go.

_That is not an option for me, son. It never has been, and it never will be. And I would hope it would not be for you, either._

Edward was disturbed by his father's devotion to Godly practice. In all his years on this earth, Carlisle should have given himself the chance to sin without punishment. Edward was baffled by this. Surely as an indestructible immortal, Carlisle would find less funding for faith in his destroyed soul. Surely as a vampire whose instincts were to kill, he would spare himself reprimand for every temptation that grazed his mind.

But Carlisle didn't do these things. And even when he _did _them, he damned himself endlessly for them.

Beneath these treacherous thoughts and sinful fantasies, though, Edward could see the glistening cause of it. And its cause was a pure one – a commendable one, even. A heroic inspiration buried under the brilliantly violent consequences.

Under the sin, there was Esme. She was the cause of it, as much as she was the reason to put an end to it. At least, Carlisle saw her this way. He saw her in many ways. Many confusing, exhilarating, changing ways...

"You care about her," Edward whispered, to acknowledge her constant presence in his father's every thought.

There was a celibate part of Carlisle's mind that was instantly comforted by the mention of Esme. She gave justification for _why_ he was falling to sin. She was the sweetest, most beautifully innocent excuse.

_Yes. Terribly. _

"You could prove it to her," Edward reminded.

Carlisle's thoughts seized with the truth of this proposal. But Esme's shining eyes and mocking smile blinded out everything else.

In the hazy realm of his thoughts, a large hand encased a smaller one, and together they tangled, strong and soft and white.

_There are far more peaceful ways of showing her that I care. _

The waters of Lake Cordial rippled for the first time that morning.

"But peace is not as powerful."

* * *

_**A/N:**__ This chapter is mostly meant to show the difference in Carlisle and Edward's standpoints on violence and what justifies it. Obviously Edward's feelings on the subject will one day lead him to rebel against Carlisle's lifestyle, and so I wanted to show some of the beginnings of that here. So I suppose the real question to be asked is, whose view is the right one?_


	5. In Shades of Gold

**In Shades of Gold**

_In this supplemental chapter, Edward and Carlisle discuss Carlisle's blossoming love for Esme. Edward is reluctant to encourage Carlisle's whimsical desire to make her his mate, urging him to instead allow more time to pass before making the decision to confess his love. I've always imagined Edward would be hesitant to believe what either Carlisle or Esme felt for the other was true love. I think hearing their thoughts for so long would have made him a bit overwhelmed at the idea, and being an adolescent, I think he would have objected to their taking on the roles of his 'parents,' that would potentially be the result of their coupling. Edward's initial motives for trying to prolong their coming together are admittedly selfish, but he does have sympathy on them eventually, plus a significant character change later on. _

_As far as following along with the story goes, this discussion would likely take place between Chapters 21 and 22 of __Stained Glass Soul__._

* * *

The introduction of a woman into their home was like adding sugar to a cup of bland coffee. After an entire lifetime of a familiar taste, suddenly sweetened, it was hard to swallow. She was easy to get along with, but so fiercely complex. With Esme, one thing meant an entirely different thing when said in this tone, with this expression, and the timing was never quite right, and good _God, _the female was such a strange little teaspoon of sugar.

Edward had seen the danger from the very beginning. Watching his father carry this mangled woman into their home one stormy evening, he had thought her upon first glance to be a corpse. Her heartbeat had been but a pulse smaller than that of a baby bird. _No hope_, he'd told the doctor. What a fool he had been for bringing this piece of death home with him.

Carlisle tore through every medicine he had kept under the bed, in the drawers, in his pockets. He placed wet towels around her head, he cleaned the scarlet gashes on her skin, though they were left just as gruesome as before. He vehemently ignored the gossamer seduction of her blood, blind with the foolish hope that his last efforts to preserve her humanity would not fail him.

And Edward had known it was coming before his father had even dared to think it. He did not care to stop him; instead he listened from the locked-away safety of the cellar below as the whimpering cries of an agonized human filled the halls. He witnessed the horror of Esme's transformation through Carlisle's vigilant eyes, fascinated and disbelieving and intensely regretful.

To this day Edward was still unsure which of these had only been Carlisle's emotions mixing in with his own.

Esme, in all her newborn rage and morally sensitive helplessness, was dangerous. She was the wide-eyed interrogator to Carlisle's sanity. Carlisle had never wanted anything so passionately, but he wanted_ her._ Not for selfish gratification – never in that way. There were no echoes of sexual superficiality in his urge to make her stay by his side. He simply wanted her company; he wanted to know her like no one else had ever known her. It was a visceral, raw need for her constant presence which consumed him. Esme was a mystery to Carlisle, and even more, she was a _woman _who was_ dependent_ _on him._

It did not take very long for their brains to start firing away in the darkness and silence. A male voice might whisper "_Esme,_" and a female voice might whisper "_Carlisle_"... They were always in the voice of the other, because obviously they never would have whispered their own names in their own thoughts.

They were calling for each other in complete silence. Always. They didn't even realize it. But Edward did.

He considered himself a decent kind of young man, never one to abuse the gift he had received from his immortality. He respected the privacy of others when he could. He might take a walk in the forest or pound away on his piano for however long the disturbing trails of thoughts would last. But they were not going to go away. Not this time. He knew this. He had practically _foreseen _it.

Edward avoided the subject for as long as he could without raising suspicions. But it was a blazing ivory elephant in every room where they were together. Carlisle was oblivious to Esme's awe, and Esme was oblivious to Carlisle's captivation. Yet it was because of this, that they had _that _– that defying, denying, prying _something. _It was something learned men wrote essays about, something poets dreamed about beneath their pillows, something men of science wanted to thrust under their microscopes and examine obsessively.

The most fascinating part was that they were both oblivious to it. This was where Edward became a mediator.

Neither Carlisle nor Edward had a particular fondness for idle chatter. They could deal with silence quite well; in fact, it was often favored to speaking in their world. But there were times when it was appropriate for just a father and son to speak alone. These times were scarce of late, and it took great care from both parties in order to make those times available again without hurting the feelings of another.

To leave Esme alone anywhere was like leaving a hungry cat in a menagerie of caged canaries and rampant rodents. Especially at first, she had been a trembling little tornado – unpredictable and obliviously destructive. But with the inevitable coming into her own, she could be left for any short amount of time, so long as she remained indoors and had recently fed.

In such rare circumstances, the father would follow his son to the edge of the lake behind their house where they would discuss whatever desperately needed discussing. Often the exchange of words was rich and engaging, followed by a favorable silence spent pondering what had been said...and the emotions that had been carefully left out of the conversation.

Carlisle stood just a few feet ahead of his son, already ankle deep in the water. His gaze shifted in the direction of the house, covered by a looming violet storm cloud, before returning to the lake. No matter how he may have tried to conceal them, his thoughts were repeatedly reminded of Esme's exact words earlier that evening: _"I just need some time...to think."_

He had been bothered by her dismissal of company, and even more so by her melancholic mood.

Esme was prone to the melancholy. She was, after all, an artist in the sense of its derivative. But she was still, in her essence, a woman with no feminine companions. Edward had sympathy for her, knowing he and his father were possibly just as difficult to understand at times as she was to them.

What bothered Edward was that Carlisle was not just perplexed by her – that would have been entirely acceptable, even relatable. But the over-zealous doctor did not tame that perplexity, and as a result of his neglect, what was once an innocent confusion had flowered into pure, glittering, childlike _fascination. _

Oh, there it was. That was the very seed for trouble if there ever was one. Edward knew these things better than anyone, save for those few who might have shared his unique gift. It all started with the fascination. Fascination yielded obsession, and obsession yielded insanity.

While Carlisle was thankfully not known to fall victim to such chains of decomposition, he was still a man like any other. Edward had only known him for a handful of years, yet even with constant access to his thoughts, Edward would never be convinced that one day the composed doctor might crack. Just the fact that he'd brought a dying woman into his home with the claim that he could do more to save her should have been a foreshadowing of what would surely turn to exquisite madness.

Some part of Edward just could not settle into the idea of Carlisle being romantically involved with a woman. It wasn't that Edward was jealous for his attention, it was just that he would have missed the way things were when it was only just the two of them – father and son, however much he may have hesitated to use the familiar labels. They were rather content this way, if he did say so himself. Two men of upstanding morality in a world of chaotic diffusion. They were two against the universe, and though they faced tribulations, they seemed to be in the habit of winning every battle they encountered.

Edward already desperately missed the days when they could take themselves out for a hunt without worrying about the third being home on her own. When they could move from place to place freely and have no ties to the home in which they lived. When they could be silent for days if they wished to be, and not see it as problem to be _fixed. _Yes, Edward missed those days. Things were so much less _complicated_ then.

Underneath it all, it disturbed Edward to realize that he was, in fact, fiercely possessive of this man he had come to regard as his father. It had taken a woman's untimely intrusion to make him aware of that. Even more, it had somehow escaped his notice before that Carlisle meant more to him on a personal level than he had previously recognized. Like any son might feel deep down about his father, Edward did not want to share him with someone else. He wanted to be Carlisle's only son, his only confidant, forever.

The thought that Esme could take that away from him gave Edward a run for his defenses. She was a threat. No matter how much he may have grown to like her, respect her, _trust _her even – she was threat to the development of his new life. She had come too soon. This was _his _time to adjust, _his _time to claim and reclaim, to discover and rediscover. He would not become a third wheel if he could just keep himself ahead of this. Edward was not entirely honest with either himself or with Carlisle, but Esme's neediness would force him to be, and that would bring about the moment where he would surely meet his pressure point.

Carlisle sent his son a soft smile, so blind to the thoughts that lambasted the boy's mind. A solemn expression could mask so well the trials of a clockwork chaos.

"You've known for a while now," he supposed aloud, "haven't you?"

This was the attribute for which Edward was the most grateful. Carlisle recognized the uselessness in pretending. He seemed to always know what Edward wanted to talk about, even when Edward would have rather denied his true desires.

"Yes."

Carlisle's shoulders shook softly as he chuckled to himself, and he summed up the laughter with a tiny sigh. "I can only guess how awkward I've made it for you." He shut his eyes and bowed his head with a painful but delicate wince. "I'll spare you the apologies then, shall I?" He laughed abruptly and shook his head. "I know you dislike that."

Suddenly feeling the need to be more than polite, Edward tilted his head away and shrugged modestly. "You're not to blame."

Carlisle raised one hand and combed a row of fingers through his hair. His hand lingered there for a few thoughtful moments as he stared into the distance, looking like he wanted nothing more than to drown in the stormy sky.

_I'm dying..._

The words were almost invisible, even in his thoughts. They were common words – common amongst humans and vampires alike – just a thought that everyone entertained at times of distress, either mild or strong. But it still made Edward cringe to hear that unsettling albeit untruthful claim, especially coming from Carlisle.

Carlisle was not dying_. _Yet some part of his mind – or perhaps his heart – claimed that he was.

His thoughts, ironically, were not of his own death in that moment, but of Esme's. She was at rest beneath his shadow, barely breathing, her heart a tiny trill beneath the dark coverlet. Carlisle remembered with disturbing detail the lush pressure of his own lips in the hollow of her feverish throat, the satisfying crush of soft skin under sharp teeth, the liquid sugar of her blood pulsing in wild streams to fill the private cavern of his mouth...

It was a memory Carlisle rarely allowed himself to dwell upon – but when he _did, _it meant something was hurting him, something was crying for his guilt like a suckling infant. But that memory was so damned _alive, _so astonishingly drenched with emotion that it was a miracle he did not lose himself while thinking of it.

No, he departed from Edward's very company when he wanted to lose himself to these kinds of thoughts. If he wanted to think of sucking her gorgeous blood, or if he even just wanted to think of holding her trembling teenage leg between his hands as he set the broken bones. He went away to think of these things. Because Carlisle was considerate. Either that, or he was mortified at the prospect of Edward hearing what happened inside his mind.

But now he was hiding nothing. Now that blushing ambrosia was clouding both their visions and churning the venom under both their tongues. Carlisle was not controlling his thoughts...but his surrender of control was, quite clearly, _purposeful._

Edward gulped back a slick shot of venom and scratched the back of his head.

When Carlisle finally spoke, his voice sounded straight from a dream. "Edward, I... I want to do _more_ for her."

"What else can you do?" Edward asked innocently, though he was not blind to the fluttery edge of his father's thoughts.

"I want to _give_ her something." Carlisle said the word 'give' with added care, as if it were his first time truly understanding its meaning.

Edward shook his head absently, knowing it would not be seen. "You've given her enough. Anymore and she'll start to feel guilty," he warned, though he knew very well the guilt part was a fair bit too late.

Carlisle's hand dropped to his side, and his expression was a brilliant illustration of immense dissatisfaction. "I want to give her something different – something..._transcendent_," he said in that soft, passionate, infuriatingly light voice.

Edward almost chuckled.

Immortality was about as transcendent as it got.

Wasn't it?

"Like...what?" Edward's voice sounded, to his regret, like little more than that of a tentative, curious child.

In place of words, he was given a fleeting story of thoughts as a response.

Carlisle thought in shades of gold. Every image was fluid and twining like a shimmery thread, linked by sinewy dewdrops, and they would piece themselves together like a hesitant puzzle, never fully forming the shapes of faces and bodies, most especially when those shapes were unmentionable.

_Her_ face was there, angled in a way that made her barely recognizable, even as he had seen her face hundreds of times before. Carlisle was so close to the edge of the forbidden boundary; yet as always, he managed to restrain himself forcefully, as he approached the ever-thinning line.

The gleaming golden threads of his thoughts sent her beautiful body splashing softly into a bed of translucent silk. They pushed her down, held her in place with demanding but gentle arms as her lips seemed to glow brighter than the rest of her face. Her eyes fell closed and her neck tilted back, opening herself to the invisible eyes who watched her...and she swiftly, frustratingly, limb by limb, feature by feature, melted away like aching vapor.

It had been the first remotely lustful image of a woman that Edward had ever caught in Carlisle's mind. And it literally stunned him.

"I understand," Edward said quietly, his hand pressed subconsciously to his stomach. So long it had been since he'd felt ill.

"I try not to think of her." Carlisle's voice hitched with the beating pain of having endured such revealing thoughts. "I'm always trying."

His head bowed in shame until his chin nearly touched his collarbone. The clouds above boiled menacingly even as the atmosphere remained eerily still beneath them, a cold humidity setting in around the lake. "Yet...there really is no reason _not _to believe she could be the one..." he mused, with such hesitant wistfulness. "It's almost too simple, really."

Knowing exactly what Esme's sentiments had been on this precise matter, Edward felt awkwardly that he had no right to contribute anything further. "Mmm."

Carlisle sent him a concerned glance.

_You don't seem enthused by any of this. Do you truly think we are not meant for each other? _

"It's not my place to tell you who you can or cannot love," Edward answered diplomatically. "But I will say that it is _very_ soon to be considering such a commitment."

In these times it was almost like Edward had become the primary giver of fatherly advice.

Carlisle turned his profile toward the clouds with a heavy breath. "I know, son, I know... It's all happened so quickly, I suppose I..." he shook his head, at a loss.

"Ill-fated. That's what it is," Edward interjected helpfully.

Carlisle looked at him squarely then. His eyelids fluttered as one who had gone for days without rest, yet he managed to hold his gaze steadily, pointedly, pleadingly. "I am growing more desperate by the day, Edward. You know this."

Edward only turned his head away, narrowing his eyes in uncomfortably deep thought. "That isn't necessarily because of _her..._"

But he knew it was. That was the only reason that would keep him from saying just the opposite.

Carlisle's mind-voice slipped skeptically into the cracks of Edward's skull.

_You think having a woman living under my care has had no effect on me? _His lilt was almost mocking.

Edward glared at his feet. _That _was not so easy to form a lie against.

"Of course it has. But it was the same way when _I_ came into your custody," he reasoned nonchalantly. "You're still adjusting to the idea of her possibly being with us for a long time. We all are."

_Possibly? _

The word, as he predicted, had struck a particularly sensitive chord with the doctor. Edward sighed in regret.

"Well, we don't know for certain if she'll want a different lifestyle sometime down the road..."

Carlisle's thoughts were a literal panic, but his voice was impressively calm to shield the storm inside. "So you have read her thoughts on the matter? She does not favor this lifestyle?"

Edward stepped a bit closer to clear up the misunderstanding. "No – I mean I _have _read her thoughts, but she doesn't_ dislike_ living with us." The tension instantly melted from Carlisle's shoulders. "I only meant that she is still incredibly erratic, especially with making crucial decisions. I wouldn't count on anything being set in stone from her just yet."

_Oh, of course not. _

It hurt to see Carlisle's face looking so forlorn at the idea that Esme might one day leave him.

"Don't worry yourself so much, Carlisle," Edward attempted in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "You're making this into much more than it is."

"What if it is _meant _to be more?"

"Again, I really think you're rushing—"

Carlisle quickly looked to both sides, and then to his feet, his head and his shoulders and his entire body seeming to sink with hopelessness. The sight of his distress was so disconcerting that Edward could not continue speaking.

_This may the only chance I will ever have, Edward. If I feel I must rush into it, then it may be a necessary risk. _

"Do you really think _God _would want you to rush into something so monumental?" Edward challenged craftily, pleased at the pang of regret that stung the other's resolve.

Carlisle's eyes were so hesitant to glare, it was almost comical. He wanted to be bitter, but his true emotions were flattened by the heavy truth in his son's words.

_No, you're right. He would not. _

Edward merely smirked.

_I must pray harder then. _

Edward just barely managed to keep his hands from pulling his hair out. "Have you ever tried _not _praying, and seeing how things turned out then?"

_How foolish. Unwise. Unthinkable. No, never. Leaving it out of God's hands? Never. _

These were the general thoughts that brushed against his mind.

Edward sighed and shook his head in resignation. "It works for me."

_That is because I pray for you, Edward. _

The boy scoffed. "You need to stop that."

The doctor smiled. "I'm sorry, son, but that is one thing that I will _not_ stop doing."

Secretly comforted and hating himself a little for it, Edward turned his attention toward the murky lake and crossed his arms darkly.

"Fine."

A haze of melancholic colors penetrated the notorious golden shades of familiar thought – blue like rampion, bright like hilltops, deep like seas, as Carlisle envisioned his caramel haired, sixteen-year-old patient, clad in nothing but her purity, sighing for his hands, breathing for his kiss. The sweet chime of venom glassed over the visions, and the ubiquitous ache returned with its stinging pressure, gnarling and gnashing gently in his tightening chest.

"Hopelessly hopeful, Carlisle," Edward mused with a lazy smirk. "Hopelessly hopeful."

For a moment the youth was guilted into believing his realistic words had caused the tears of venom in his father's eyes.

"One day you may desire the same things I do, son."

Edward turned his head down, knowing as long as there existed no target for such desires in his life, that would never happen. "You don't know that," he pointed out gently.

Carlisle sighed and rested his back against the rocky cliff side, churning the water below him with one foot in a languid hypnosis. "No, I don't. But for the time being I will not be ashamed for wanting a proper family."

"We are proper as we are." Edward had hoped his words would come off as a challenge, but they escaped his lips too early, pressed into something soft and defensive.

Carlisle's eyes lifted lucidly for a moment. _Oh, Lord, he's right... Am I only trying to justify my desires into something more appropriate...? _

With an easy laugh, Edward tried to sift through any uninvited intensity. "You aren't around many..._vibrant_ women, Carlisle. It may frighten you to hear this, but those kinds of feelings are more than natural."

_You forget that she was once my patient as well, Edward. _

"I have not forgotten," he stated quietly.

_Nevertheless, there is no excuse for thinking of her in that way._

"Why do you let that bother you so much?" Edward huffed.

_Because I have never had thoughts of this nature for any other woman. It makes me feel so...exploitative. As if I brought her here and made her what she is for all the wrong reasons..._

"You would have known if your sole intention for changing her was to make her your _mate_, Carlisle."

_But what if I didn't? I wasn't thinking that night. You remember. I wasn't thinking clearly. _

This, he could not argue with.

Edward stooped over to select a fantastically flat stone from the dirt and tossed it with a decisive flick of his hand, watching it skip over the surface of the lake. "You're digging too deep. Just stand back and see this for what it is – a simple little mess. Esme happens to be a woman, whom you may or may not have romantic feelings for, and whom you feel obligated to watch over for eternity, because _you_ made her this way_._"

_But it is not that simple at all, Edward. _

Edward heaved a trying sigh as he skipped a second stone, considerably less impressively than the first. "Explain."

He wanted only to hear his thoughts, but Carlisle instead felt the need to speak aloud, which always made Edward uncomfortable. It was difficult hearing Carlisle's voice in the open – a tangible, tentative presence of solemn sound waves to soil his ears.

"I feel..._connected _to her. It hurts me deeply to be away from her. Even now." He shook his head, with eyes awe-filled and glazed. "I... I can't look at her without feeling this..." he lowered his eyes painfully and whispered the word, "_need._"

Edward winced to himself, burying his hands in his hair. This was quickly becoming too much for him to handle.

"You can't take her as your mate, Carlisle. It wouldn't be right," he burst resolutely, slightly taken aback by the onslaught of Carlisle's tortured and offended thoughts. "At least not _yet_," he added hastily. "Give her more time. Give _yourself _more time."

_More time... What is more time to a few centuries? I have the time, but God forgive me, I don't want to wait. _

"I know you don't want to wait, but you must." By some miracle, Edward managed to keep his voice steady and gentle. Then again, he had learned from the best. "At least do it for her, Carlisle."

Carlisle absently lifted one hand to touch his throat, fingers brushing the scars there, almost shyly. He looked out to the horizon, shoulders rising with renewed hope as the clouds began to part for silky peeks of blue sky.

_Yes, you're right, son. For her, then._

_I will wait for her. _


	6. Caduceus

**Caduceus**

_This is something I wrote as a more in-depth study for Carlisle's character, more with regards to his religious stance as well as his reasons for finding himself immersed in the medical profession despite the challenges he faces as a vampire. I was going to publish it as a separate one-shot, but I combined it with more elements so that it would fit within the confines of my story. I hope this explains some of Carlisle's confusion as far as his changing feelings for Esme, as well as how his commitment to being a doctor affects his personal decisions throughout the story._

* * *

The Rod of Asklepius, also known in ancient times known as a stark symbol of the preservation of life, was full of irony. It was ironic because such a symbol, being for _life_,could never really represent a doctor who was truly dead.

The modern world, so often ignorant, had literally twisted the symbol into something else. Here, he wore a staff of double snakes on his coat: The Caduceus.

Carlisle Cullen looked upon the familiar helix of twisting snakes and stagnant wings with sober eyes. He thought, in his strange and often times eccentric mind that it might make an intimidating hand decoration of sorts for a preacher – the preacher he had always been meant to become.

Why a doctor, and not a preacher? Why the field of blood and humanity, and not the field of wine and spirituality? He sometimes wondered about his decision when he was alone.

There were so many times he would catch his reflection in a looking glass on the wall. These mirrors he'd hated for so long; they hindered his path with their shining planes of brutal truth. That reflection he saw – that blond snippet of a familiar profile – was so distressing to him. The man who looked back at him... He was so _sad. _

Carlisle realized with every jolting moment he passed the mirror just how _strange _he really was. How different he was, not only in appearance but in demeanor and carriage and speech and, heaven help him...everything. He was too different from the rest. Dangerously different.

It wasn't any wonder why the humans always spared him that damned double-take when he crossed their paths. No wonder they squinted their eyes and clapped a hand over their mouth when they got a good long look at his face. Why the women lifted lithe fingers to discreetly feather over their throats when he dared to breathe the same air as they did.

His hair was too blond, his eyes were too gold, his skin was too pale, his scent was too jarring. He was more a _threat _to these poor people's health than a help.

Carlisle found himself sitting alone again at the end of the day, the hours darkening and creeping in around him as he twisted his stethoscope between his fingers like a restless addict. He thought of how many risks he took every day, just to tend to a wound or soothe a cough. It was reckless on some level, but somehow so _necessary. _

He could not imagine living a life without rounds and patients and the occasional spill of blood. That was, in some sick way, the best part of it all. Those rare times when they _gushed _blood, soiled his clothes and dared to spread their scarlet spoils to his flesh. He almost relished in it – being so righteous in the midst of his temptation, a dry stone against his instinct. Control was a very seductive thing, because it was always on the edge of his fingertips. Even the master was in danger of losing control. It was a quality that he had to work toward every moment, but it could never be fully attained.

This was exactly what Carlisle needed. A never-ending goal. Because his "life" was never-ending.

But to spend the whole of eternity doing something he was not called upon to do remained one of his greatest fears.

Had he made the right choices in his life? More importantly, had he made the right choices in his _death_?

Carlisle was not a man who was sure of his actions. He relied, as many pious men do, on his God for such wisdom to be granted. The ability to make crucial decisions was a gift, not a talent. And there was indeed a difference. He could have easily pulled Excalibur from the stone with a hint of a tug from one gentle hand, but this sort of power was never something Carlisle had sought before. He spent much time rafting the river of self-doubt with an oar of reason. He once had an oar of control as well, but it was giving him too many splinters of late.

It was a chore to be a man of integrity; it always had been, even in ancient times. There never was _a time _when men were free from this impossible standard, this gaping hole in the ground, this mattress stuffed with needles. Resistance verses sin.

Men were basically jackals, swarming around him, their critique and slander and acidic words haunting his every quiet step. Carlisle was a fool in many men's eyes, particularly those who shared his dark gift. His bloodless brothers. His immortal family.

He would recall quite vividly on occasion the sorts of stares he'd received from his fellow vampires over the years. The bold red orbs of the masters as they judged him in frustratingly polite silence. There was one specific "look" Aro himself favored when eyeing the naive young blond – the edge of his thin lips peaked at the corner in such a delicately mocking fashion; the ancient regality of his salt-white face so insultingly wise, staring _down _at his faithful guest. Even if the latter was in fact taller, that stare Aro gave always had the practiced effect of breeding fierce uncertainty and elegant discomfort in the one who accepted it.

They looked at Carlisle like he was a child, like something so adorably helpless and wickedly inexperienced. Something that needed care and guidance, and most of all to be humored relentlessly.

This candy-coated Christian in all his delightful denial.

They _doted _on his unprecedented virtuousness.

It was offensive, but even _offensive_ company was company enough for the desperate man.

Thankfully desperation had bloomed into restlessness, and the dust of many new roads was stirred beneath Carlisle's feet. For how a few careful steps had landed him in the medical wonderworld of America, he was forever thankful.

There were acres of precious knowledge to be uncovered in the field of medicine. During the first several years especially, he had an insane hunger for anything medically related. Finally, he had something to _do, _some goal to rocket toward, little by little. Every day was a bright shining plate of purposeful hours, each more fulfilling than the last so long as his fingers brushed the pages of a new book, and his eyes drained the details of a new diagram.

He was fascinated with the precious mechanism that was the human body. Had he only known when he'd been human himself just how incredible humans were... Every anatomical anomaly, every tiny cell rolling about in their blood, and the infinitely tinier tidbits of life within those cells – all of these microscopic miracles he could never learn enough about. He wanted to see these things, and touch them with his hands, and know that they were real. He wanted to fix these helpless creatures, and rearrange their bones, and nudge their organs back into place. He wanted to give God some reason to believe he still deserved to be on the earth.

When he at last earned his medical degree, Carlisle considered the hospital his retreat from the madness of the rest of the world. It was a microcosm for disaster itself, but at least there was a sense of _control _over chaos in a hospital. It was the place of healing to both old and young sufferers alike. People sought help here. They sought refuge. Sanctuary. Yes, God, the hospital was their sanctuary. It could certainly be _his _as well.

There was something of ample comfort in the naming of the white institutions. Slap a "Saint" in front of the name and there you had it, a brand new hospital. He never grew tired of the repetitive "Our Lady of"'s and "Saint So-and-So"'s. They were mildly divine, and greatly to his liking. Carlisle could always feel at home in a place named after something holy.

The hospital was a holy place, whether this was a widely recognized fact or not. The scent was not of incense and myrrh. The halls were not clothed in stained glass windows of Apostles or tapestries of Saint George defeating the dragon. But there was an aura that haunted the hospital which reminded Carlisle of God's presence in the midst of the hurt and hopeless.

It was amidst suffering where hope was the most feverish – if one only knew where to look for it, when to ask for it.

Carlisle liked to think he knew these things, both as a doctor and as a private preacher. He aspired always to be greater than he thought a man should be, but he wore humility like a noble crown of thorns about his blond head. It was imperative that no one see the wounds he received from wearing it day in and day out.

The hospital was his home. Those were the scuff marks of _his _shoes on the tiles. That was _his _name being called in the teeming hallways. Those were _his _patients asking his aid. They asked for _him. _They needed _him. _They wanted _him. _

Oh to be asked for, needed, and wanted.

To be gifted in the precision of hands, the swiftness of mind, the bravery of blood-lust. To be called upon to _heal. _This was the opposite of what vampires did, he thought. Vampires destroyed.

_You see, Father? I am not a vampire. Not here. Not between these white, white walls._

But were the whitest walls the place he should choose to camouflage himself? Should he have taken that other path – that straight, narrow, eggshell-lined road that led him down the center aisle toward heaven?

The fear was always embedded in him, no matter how many times he thought of approaching the altar to receive the Eucharist. Would his immortal body repel the "Blood of Christ?" Or would he be able to ingest it as he would the blood of any living creature, metaphorically or transcendentally or physically?

Would having elderly women tug the silk of his priestly vestments have been more fulfilling than the flirtatious tickle of nurse's fingers on his sleeve? Would he have been more at peace watching a married couple part over a funeral pyre rather than a coldly monitored bedside?

Carlisle sometimes felt the insides of his stomach wringing in jealousy as he watched the priest step past him to give the last rites to one of _his _dying patients. It was a sprain in his heart, a sickly thrust of regret entangling between the line of what _was _and what _could be. _

Which would the patient remember from his last moment on earth: the face of his priest or the face of his doctor?

In the final uplifting, the priest would be the hero who summoned all peace and triumphed over suffering. And somewhere, some small distance behind him in the shadows, the doctor would watch, knowing he was the one who had failed.

It was infuriating to Carlisle that his colleagues might repeat all-knowing phrases of comfort in his ear in the wake of misfortune.

_"We all make mistakes; we're all _human _after all."_

All human indeed.

Yet Carlisle could not deny that a part of him was so much more _human _than vampire. Still, under the ice of his flesh and the venom searing in his veins, he thought himself as lost and vulnerable as any other man under the watchful eyes of God.

This was what kept his imagination fiery with deception. Sometimes he envisioned himself, spewing grand speech from the pulpit of a cathedral, where his voice would echo and his words would be heard. It was just so hard to find anyone who was willing to listen.

It frustrated him to no end that people just didn't understand the power or the magnitude of where they came from – and even more baffling to him, they didn't _want _to understand it. Consistently, they refused enlightenment from any source they came to face with, and this left him _aching _to speak out about the wonders and mystique surrounding the world of the divine.

He wanted them to know – vampires or humans, it didn't matter – that God's presence could be felt everywhere. He wanted to sink deep into spiritual discussions, and ponder the meaning behind the very universe. He wanted to find answers to impossible questions in those around him, specifically those who were skeptical where he was hopeful. Like the inside of a grapefruit, its flesh fantastically full and cold, a ruby tang for the senses. _This, _Carlisle thought, was what he _desired. _

He liked being a doctor. He even loved it. But when he truly thought about it, he never _desired _the occupation of a medical professional.

Though he did desire to help those around him, he thought there may be more ways to go about the task than stitching gashes and prescribing medications. To help people find their _faith... _that would have fulfilled both poles of his longing.

There was nothing that kept a doctor from being a preacher as well. It was not favorable in the eyes of certain patients, and neither was it profitable to the hospital. But Carlisle could not keep himself from the occasional slip of the tongue, the wayward, _"God has a plan"_ to the sickly eyes of a bedridden mortal.

He could be God's diplomat by the bedside, and they would never equate him with the angels. He could keep himself bound beneath white coats and white walls and stethoscopes and...blood.

It was a personal challenge to himself. Sometimes he had to admit that. That he had chosen medicine above priesthood for the grit of it all, for the ultimate _opposing _force to that set of immoral principles prescribed to his kind by a bite to the neck.

Priests could talk, but they did not _do _the way that doctors _did. _

Doctors could do both. And while people of religious reason "needed" priests, the rest and all of the above _needed doctors_.

Oh, to be needed.

It was intoxicating that people asked for him by name, came to him when they were in need of advice, grasped his jacket when they were in peril.

No vampires had ever treated him this way; lavished him with such catastrophically beautiful, abundant strokes of attention.

Edward never did these things.

Carlisle sometimes wished the boy would ask for him rather than marvel over him. He was not blind; he saw the way Edward stared at him, like a stingray gliding over the sand of his discomforting thoughts, waiting to strike.

Edward had a grand advantage over his elder. But Carlisle's mind told him a hundred times a day in unconscious echoes just how much he needed this companionship. How long he'd waited for it. How much he still feared losing it.

It was a deep dark hole he had dug for himself, and diligently he buried his body and laid it to rest when the truth was freed.

A son should have _needed _his father. Oh, but they could not fool themselves for much longer; Edward did not see him as a father with the fervor Carlisle had hoped. Perhaps he never would. Perhaps the hole would get deeper and darker yet.

But then there was Esme...

What she asked of him, Carlisle feared, was beyond his capability. After too long _wanting _to be needed by another of his kind, he now _was _needed by this woman. This wonderfully wistful newborn vampire who twisted his life between her fingers like a child playing with putty.

He wanted her in a way that defiled everything the word _want _itself stood for. His thoughts for her were always racing toward the shoreline of impurity, and the waves were cresting, higher and louder in the pit of his control.

He wanted to be closer to her. But closer he could never be – not when he harbored such indecent desires for her. Not when he was aching to thrust everything of himself into her naïve openness. She did not realize that she would never be able to withstand such a burden.

Carlisle would not share his burden with anyone but God. Esme did not deserve to carry the weight of the cross he had been given; not when she was already stumbling beneath her own.

She came to him, still. She asked him questions. Oh, all of her merciless little questions. Her voice was the fleeting lushness of springtime, striking him with a melancholy medley of nectarous notes and pulling away again. It was so cruel.

He longed for her even more when she came to him, asking advice, seeking his council_. _And these moments were pleasant and soft and comforting, like being in a home in a dream – a home that he could only imagine belonging to him one day. Having Esme at his side was sweet and savory and so soothing. He could live like this forever, with her pretty, lopsided smile sweeping against his jaw; her fingers trailing over his arm in passing.

She would not spare him the pain of her absence, or her presence.

It was his fault for being so indulgent, for being so uncontrolled with his affections. He might shower her with gifts and praise her with sweet compliments...but by encouraging her, he was only trapping himself.

The distance between them was necessary. The distance was what kept him stable, kept him healthy and sane. If he could just force himself through the last forty days of his walk through the desert, he would be quenched of his thirst. Esme would be done with him, and her newborn urges would disappear like droplets in an oasis. But Carlisle would continue to bear the pain of watching her carry on without him. She would reach that point where she would no longer _need _him.

This was why he could not carry on.

To be closer to Esme was to fondle the very snakes of seduction. To touch the Caduceus with bare fingers and wield it like the Gilgamesh he was not.

It was with deepest regret that Carlisle built the walls around himself and spoke about sending Esme out on her own. And he had so many moments he wished he could take back – moments when the cornerstone would slip from his grasp and those walls would crumble down around him.

She was there, amidst the dust, standing in her skirt and her bare shoulders with her hair flowing restlessly around the porcelain curves of her neck.

He fell so many times under the innocent siege of her tempting guile. Before he realized it, he was asking _her _questions, trying to get her to open herself to him when he knew he was not allowed inside.

He asked God to relieve him from the_ wanting_. But Carlisle was not cooperating with his own will.

He wanted Esme. Whether he was close to her or distant from her had no influence on his yearning, and nothing could stop the rogue fire of his passion from targeting her. Even worse, some part of him still believed that they were meant to be.

But oh, if they were, this would not be an easy answer. This would be just as challenging, just as tangling to both their lives.

The very image of their lives entwining together, like the God-forsaken helix on the Caduceus he wore on his pocket was not an unpleasant one. But it reminded Carlisle that his calling was first and foremost that which God had helped him choose long ago – that of a doctor. For the people. For the humans.

Just as a priest is called to care for his church before any _one woman_, Carlisle supposed, this would be the model he must base his own life after. He must love his Esme in secret, suppress his desires to link himself to her both spiritually and physically in favor of the life he had already committed himself to living. The life he was comfortable with.

A life of healing.

And somehow along the way, he would have to find a way to heal himself.


	7. Annaliese

**Annaliese**

_This was a companion chapter I had written as a study for Carlisle's experience with his patient Annaliese up until the point of her death. I thought this particular episode deserved an audience because it describes Carlisle's character in my story with more depth, and it provides an explanation for why he thought of biting Annaliese before she died. I introduced the sub-plot with Annaliese as a kind of discreet set-up for Carlisle's motivation for changing Rosalie. Thus, when he comes across a dying Rosalie, he sees the missed opportunity he had to change Annaliese, and he acts immediately in choosing to make Rosalie immortal (with Edward as a potential mate in mind)._

* * *

_12th October, 1921_

_At twenty-three years old, Christ Himself was ten years my senior when He was crucified, and still I feel as though the evangelistic crusade of my humanity was scarcely near complete. Had I lived but a decade more, would my precious prophecy have been fulfilled? Would I have found life's meaning before living only in death? Would I have been more fit to share my faith with those around me being unhindered by the chains and boundaries set by this lifestyle of the damned? _

_Dear Lord, I ask that You spare me the bleak future I fear will consume me. Help me to find the path toward righteousness, even in my times of blindness. Keep me from wavering on this path in dark times, and hold my hand should I stumble under the weight of the cross You have asked me to bear in Your glory, _

_Amen._

Every night it was the same. At precisely nine o'clock in the evening, he finished the entry with a sigh of resignation. Every night being exactly the same, his journal now, it seemed, closed itself.

He sometimes used a feather quill to write when no one was watching. It was a pheasant feather – simple, brown, and as aged as its owner. There was something about dipping the quill into an inkwell that made the act of writing into a more substantial action, more of an exercise; something that could not be completed with haste, something that really stuck with him.

At quarter past nine, the telephone clanged its song of warning, and without raising it to his ear, he knew. He knew who was calling, and who they were calling for, and what they needed.

And so he packed up his things and left his home in the dark, cold night, ready to embark on an all too familiar journey.

Carlisle Cullen did not hate many things. At least he tried not to hate at all. But he hated the cold.

It was one of the few things he allowed himself to dislike with ample passion, and with little shame.

He made any efforts possible to protect himself from the cold, and if he were human, he would probably have never dared to leave his house on a day so bitter. Although it was still the middle of autumn, the erratic shift in the seasonal weather had been marred by a cruel cold front. It seemed winter was already here in the very dead of night and the very brink of dawn. He had been given an unfortunate foretaste of the season, and it clearly promised to be very dispassionate and dismal. Very convinced was he that Jack Frost was an evil sprite, out to haunt him.

The cold clung to his immortal body in a way it could only cling to a being of marble and ice. Carlisle envied those humans whose natural warmth served them religiously – an army of ninety-eight point six glorious degrees to shield them from the frost.

If they touched their tongues to a snowflake, by God, that snowflake melted. In an instant it was gone. Humans had such commanding power over vapor and liquid, and wonderful heat. Carlisle wanted that. So badly wanted it.

He was not the only one.

He would sometimes watch Esme by the fireplace while they were talking. He supposed she did not even notice the habit, but every time she saw _him _step closer to the fire, she would take one step in the same direction. They were almost discreetly competing for the warmth. When one expressed a need for it, the other followed involuntarily.

His eyes never tired of watching her graceful little fingers stretch out before the flames.

He would smile to himself as he watched her, thinking she looked so _tempted_ to reach out and clasp the very flames with her fingers. Her curious nature was an inspiration to his heart, and Carlisle grew more curious about his Esme by the day.

_His _Esme.

He could never stop calling her that. Using the possessive form before her given name was such a dangerous practice – and just because he did it in the privacy of his mind did not make it any more acceptable. After all, he had never called Edward _"his _Edward," nor did he ever harbor the desire to call him this.

Carlisle suffered silently over this concept of possession. He wanted to say this woman _belonged _to him. And it disturbed him further to think she might accept this offer if he ever made it.

Every time he left her to stand in the doorway, saying their farewells, she looked so wide-eyed with worry for him. It made his stomach twist and his fingers tingle until they lost their capability. Her eyes seemed to beg him with every glassy reflection, _"Don't leave. Not yet." _

How he wished to tell her that it would _always _be his duty to leave. Prolonging the inevitable was a foolish desire, but it was a desire he housed just as fervently.

Esme had effortlessly sealed this desire when she dared to touch him.

Her arms came up around his neck – so warm, so...womanly. She lingered over his shoulders as she arranged the fabric, the delicious perfectionism of her every touch fueling his longing for the impossible. And thinking she had finished at last, her hands slid down further, palms flat and open against his chest. In her innocence, she had no inkling that her touch, being one of care and affection, posed a danger to him because it was still, beneath the dainty fingertips and soft pressure of her palms, _feminine_.

He asked for the Lord to invade his body in that moment, as the cruel suspension crept in around them with every breath he took, each more generous than the last as if to impress her.

Her hands lingered for a second more, nudging that seemingly strong but secretly sensitive plane just beneath his ribcage. That mysterious nudge of her hands sent an aggressive surge of terrifyingly intimate heat racing through the center of his chest, filling all of the crevices, turning everything rigid into something soft and pliable. For that moment Carlisle believed Esme to be an unassuming sorceress, able to command the forces of his body, able to weave his reactions with her wandering fingers.

He never wanted to wear a different scarf.

But because it would have been embarrassingly suspicious for him to continue wearing that same red scarf over and over, he sometimes wore a different one for stage. But he always tucked the red one into his inside pocket, so it was still on his person. So the sweet fruit of her scent was always within his reach. So her scent became a part of him. Her scent, more fruit than flower. It did not only grow, but it ripened.

Esme had him tangled.

Oh, why had he not listened to Edward when he'd had the sense?

_I will wait for her, _he'd said. And wait for her he did. But as far as he could see, Esme needed him for all the _right _reasons, which meant none would constitute him one day sharing her bed.

Carlisle stopped waiting for anything.

He had to stop himself from _wanting _her. Because – damn the needs of his flesh! – his mind was no longer a place fit to be revealed to the heavenly Father. Not when his mind was watching her touch him...beneath the scarf.

To clear these luscious fantasies away was a depressing necessity. He constantly called upon winter to invade sweet, seductive summer in his mind.

It was depressing enough having to watch the real seasons change before his eyes. Every day it got a little harder for his foot to take that first step out the front door in the morning. The wind seemed to wrap her gangly arms around him in gelid seduction, and he always refused her. Carlisle tried to hide, tried to keep himself pure under layers of his sweaters and coats. But the sleet still assaulted him wherever it could. The frost still kissed his face where his flesh was free to the air, and those kisses were painful. They made him want to cry.

This was just one of the reasons why visiting Annaliese Harkhurst had turned into such a dreadful chore.

_It hadn't been that way in the beginning._

Carlisle cared deeply for the girl, of course – perhaps even too deeply. He was afraid the cause for his irrational affection was because she reminded him of another certain sixteen-year-old damsel he had known a decade prior.

But Annaliese was far feebler than young Esme had been. She was so delicate in frame, with bones that could have been porcelain twigs beneath her translucent skin, a paper-thin waist, hair a surprisingly pleasant color of frost-covered straw, thinning around her small, round face. Her features were so tiny they frightened him – a pointed perk to both her nose and ears, her brows all but twin penciled shadows above her sunken dull blue eyes.

The illness had stunted her development, and catching her just on the brink of womanhood, her body was cloistered in a terminal state of prepubescence – and her innocence and helplessness only served to enhance her strikingly deceptive youth.

Carlisle was afraid to touch her, always. Especially in the beginning. She was introduced to him like any other patient, by her mother, amidst the sheepishly murmured implications that their family did not possess the means to keep their daughter in the hospital. So the kind Doctor Cullen had agreed to bring the hospital home to them.

He'd never considered the decision to be a foolish one, though it had been done in haste. The childlike face of the young girl in bed was just so unrefusable. Her face was somehow divine to him. Too many times he'd been asked by the raspy voices of his patients if he were really an angel. To have the reverse happen was a sign in itself. Carlisle had thought Annaliese was an angel.

She was still and silent when he spoke to her during those first several days, answering her doctor's questions with a nod of her head or crinkle of her nose. She rarely blinked. She often coughed. And Carlisle was fascinated by her.

When she'd finally started speaking to him, he was smitten with the helpless strain of her voice, how the deep solidity of his own nearly swept hers away like a wave over a ripple. But they spoke of many things together. Simple, impersonal, happy sorts of things.

She was by far the most cooperative patient he'd ever treated. Where many females were prone to relentless fidgeting when he touched them, Annaliese was the image of absolute stillness as his chilly fingers poked and prodded. He caught her watching him sometimes, off the corner of his eye. She looked at him so differently than all the others had. Her eye was innocent, utterly complacent, every permutation of purity crystallizing unmarred in her line of sight. Doctor Cullen was just her doctor, and while it was clear she was deeply grateful for his care, she hid no murmuring motives beneath her lashes.

She was not disturbed by him. She was not suspicious of his dexterity, nor was she intimidated by his appearance. She looked at him as if he were no different than any other human doctor, and that made her such a joy to visit. Back in her healthier days, at least.

Annaliese had the lightest laugh of anyone he'd heard. Even her younger siblings could not rival the daintiness of her rare, wayward giggle. Carlisle had always recognized himself to have a particularly softer timbre in the way of voices, but he could not help thinking even his own lilt sounded somewhat boisterous compared to the airiness of Annaliese's. It gave her that extra nudge of innocence.

They were all so innocent.

Her brothers and sisters were plenty, of whom she was the eldest. They never quite lost their shyness around the strange doctor, even after weeks and soon months of having him in their home. They would peek their tiny round heads around the corner of Annaliese's bedroom door, blinking their curious eyes to see what their sister would be made to do. Eventually the children came to see the warmth of Doctor Cullen despite the coldness of his skin, and he preceded in addressing them by name were he to see them in the hall.

_"Come in, young Lucas, don't be shy."_

_"Ah, Sophia, is that you, little one?"_

Carlisle had not been around many young children in his life. He considered it a lovely opportunity to become familiar with the way their minds worked.

They still never spoke to him. But they communicated by means of a glance, a touch, a stomp of a foot – all of these little perplexing suggestions. Children, he thought, made the most exquisite use of body language. He quickly learned to interpret their signs and meanings, and indulged them where he saw fit. Now he knew what they sought when they silently suggested it.

Claire just wanted to be lifted onto the edge of the bed. Christopher only wanted to hear his sister's heartbeat through the stethoscope. Dorothy simply wanted try on the doctor's scarf.

It made Carlisle ache in the most wondrous way, having all of these children around. Not one of them feared him. In fact, if he was not entirely delusional, he believed they _liked _him. It was in their eyes – foggy morning colored eyes, wide like enchanted fish swimming through a reef. They were so trusting, so insatiably curious...not unlike his Esme. Carlisle sometimes overhead Esme speaking about the joys of children with Edward. Carlisle had never known how impressive a gift children could be until he'd finally intruded upon their habitat himself. He was practically living with them, in this humble and welcoming household. He _wanted _to live with them. He wanted...children.

They were like the most delightful infestation, the most unpredictable cherubs, scampering in and out; hiding here and there. And somehow, despite his infallible senses, they always managed to surprise him in some way.

Praises, they _smiled _when he smiled! – as if it were the sharpest and most irresistible of reflexes. As if they couldn't help it. Through the grace of God, they even _laughed _when he laughed. And they had this exquisite habit of shyly edging just a little closer to stand beside him while he worked. Nothing could compare to that building pressure of their tiny presence, step by step, coming _closer _to him_. _As if he would ever dream to send such a gift away. And finally when they were next to him, they lingered and hovered for as long as they pleased, comfortable with the proximity. It was the blessing of the century to feel them so close. Sometimes they were so close that they brushed him accidentally when they moved.

After just several weeks these children saw just how committed the good doctor was to helping their beloved sister. And Carlisle no longer doubted his delusions.

They were quite nearly in love with him.

This broke his heart.

They stared at him in sweet-faced silence, they tugged on his jacket to gain his attention, they smiled when he patted their heads, and they thought he was a hero when the battle had not even begun.

It tore him to pieces that these children would have to watch their sister drift away before their very eyes. Their very wide, morning-sky, fishlike eyes.

Carlisle did not want to leave Annaliese, and he now did not want to leave these children. If one of them happened to catch cold, he was there for the child as much as he was there for their sister. Caring for this family was painfully addicting. He had trouble sometimes, remembering that he _almost did _have a family of his own at his home, waiting for him. Or at least, he hoped they were waiting for him.

He missed Esme and Edward, naturally, even being away from them for a few minutes. But there was something so distracting, so all-consuming about the Harkhurst family that drew him in without struggle. He felt _so very human _here with them. As much as Carlisle hated to admit it, neither Edward nor Esme could bring him this feeling. This scorching, inebriating, reeling sensation of being _fully _human again.

He wanted it. Like any other addiction, he went after it as often as he could.

Annaliese, in all her bedridden glory, was his savior.

The early mornings he'd spend gently forcing her to eat her porridge, the afternoons he'd close the windows to block any stray beams of sun so that he could stay a little longer, the evenings he'd talk to her about pointless things because she'd said the sound of his voice was the only thing that could bring her a peaceful sleep. It was all going to end one of these days, and he did not want it to end. He wanted to cling to these strangely wonderful hours of fulfillment with this enchantingly dependent young girl while they lasted.

He could see the signs of her weakness dawning. The telltale lines of sunken ribs protruding beneath her clavicle. The lost strands of pale blond hair he'd find on his coat that were too long to be his own. The extra second it took for her to lift herself when he encouraged her to sit upright in her bed.

But her eyes were somehow bright and alive through it all, like a stream that had blasted free of its icy shell on the first of spring. There were raging rapids of life in those eyes, and Carlisle was being forced to watch that life drain away every day.

Where he had once jumped at the chance to visit the Harkhursts, where it had once been a joy to come to their house and see the children and feel so human, it was now something he wished to avoid.

He would knock on the door to the Harkhursts' modest house, that slick feeling of dread filling his empty stomach like a heavy, metallic poison. Annaliese's mother looked just as gaunt as her dying daughter. Mrs. Harkhurst would greet the doctor with that same hopeless frown, her eyes always flashing behind the tears she tried to hold. She hoped to hold them long enough that they would evaporate before they spilled down her cheeks. It pained Carlisle to watch this woman age an entire decade in just two months before his eyes.

This house had transformed in the blink of an eye. It was now too much like the hospital, a place where he was regarded as more than any other human. This house was now a place where his first name was 'Doctor', an impersonal address that they threw about in cries of desperation or restless sobs.

_"Please, Doctor."_

_"Doctor, can you help her?"_

_"Doctor, will she live?"_

He was helpless to comfort every one of their pleas while inside his heart was being crushed and cursed, and there was no one to cure _him. _

Sometimes Carlisle wondered how much reckless benevolence the world could take before it spat it back at him. He waited for that day – for centuries, he waited for that day – and he was damned lower and lower until he could no longer see the coy sparkle of it on the horizon. Perhaps he was doomed to an eternity of _giving. _That was all right, he decided. He could accept this – prefer it, even. With no one to soothe him in his times of distress, he could not feel guilty. He could retreat to his solace just the same, and cry into the invisible shoulder of some Holy Spirit that miraculously hovered behind him everywhere he went.

He brought that Spirit with him into this house, and willed it to permeate the halls and purify the rooms. Every disease should be swept out the door and made to suffer in the bitter cold. This family would go on, with or without their beloved daughter. He chanted the same prayer for them in the back of his mind, always. His fingers would absently clutch the crucifix at his throat as he watched Annaliese in her bed, and the parents saw his faith, the children saw his hope.

When Carlisle was finally alone in the room with Annaliese, she spoke to him in a wispy voice that could have barely been heard by the sharpest ear. But he heard her every word, clear like a nightingale's song.

Her apologetic eyes gazed up at him from her worn pillow. "I ask for you too often, Doctor. I keep you from your other patients."

The shame in her tired voice bathed him with sorrow. "No, Annaliese. You _are _my patient. I make time for you just as I do for the others," he countered assuredly. "I _want _to be here."

He did want to be _with her_, but he _hated _being _here_. In this house. With this family that would inevitably be torn apart by tragedy. He had to lie to the poor child. _He didn't want to be here. _He dreaded receiving her mother's calls every morning, every night.

But the lie was worth it to see her eyes shine as her dry lips parted to speak. "When you are with me...I do not feel sick anymore."

His heart quivered at her strange but sincere confession, wanting to say something in return. But he could think of no adequate thanks, no way to tell her that what she felt was only an illusion – and a misplaced one, at that.

His reply was pure silence, and he hoped she could see the gratefulness in his eyes as he stared down at her. This helplessness was not something Carlisle was used to. He felt so vulnerable without his doctor's coat, without the stethoscope around his neck, without the backdrop of a white-walled hospital behind him. He was feeling less and less like a doctor the longer he spent with this young woman. He was shedding the protective layers of professional facade, one papery white sheet at a time, and underneath there was only Carlisle. And he was helpless and unable to hide.

He silently tilted his head and felt her forehead out of sad habit. The fever had long ago fled her body in favor of a deadly chill. And for a moment he wished that damned fever would come back. He hated the cold so much, so very much. It did not deserve to spoil her once warm flesh.

It broke his heart that by touching her, he would only make her colder. In the times of fever, his open palm was a gift to her burning skin. Now his hand was an icy catalyst for her death. He couldn't bare to touch her, yet she asked him to. But he couldn't refuse her either.

God tugged Carlisle's indecisive hand and placed it gently against her cheek. And there was no inner struggle. This was what she wanted, and deep down it was what her doctor wanted as well. Because nothing felt warmer than when Annaliese asked for his touch. Heavens, Carlisle knew nothing that would put a greater swell in his heart than to hear her faint request for his hand to hold. That contact, with a human who was unafraid of him, who claimed to need him, to _want _him by her side – it was intoxicating to his solitary soul.

This, he supposed, was why he continued to be their doctor. People _wanted _doctors. People _needed _doctors. Carlisle longed to be _wanted _and _needed. _

No matter that _he_ wanted and needed someone as well. Unimportant that _he_ desired a hand to hold when he felt lost and alone. He could live without those things, so long as dying patients asked for _his _hand before they passed on.

He stayed with her until the room grew dark, and then he would light the candles. In her healthier days Annaliese had chuckled at his avid preference for the raw wick, and like every other person she wondered why he wanted feeble flames in place of electric brilliancy. In just several nights' time, he soon had her enchanted by those candles.

Since then she had asked him to light them every night, and to say a prayer for her brothers and sisters as he did so. And so they kept these five tiny candles by her bedside: one for Sophia, one for Christopher, one for Claire, one for Dorothy, one for Lucas. The candles were frightfully shallow now. The wax melted and made awkward shapes of frozen splashes in the dish. Like everything else in this house, they were disappearing. Why did God invent disappearance?

Sitting there, vigilant and steady by Annaliese's familiar bedside, Carlisle had not been certain that this seemingly insignificant night together would be their last. He supposed there was a kind of somber air to the evening, a calm acceptance of the end soon to come. Annaliese was, ironically, not so weak in voice or in face that night. In fact, she looked like something of a weary angel herself, lying with her thin blond hair in a haphazardly graceful fan over her pillow, her delicate face glowing shyly in the candlelight. They had all gone to bed save for the doctor and his patient, and it was quiet enough to hear a breath from the next room over. Not a rustle of leaves or gust of wind could be heard outside. Nothing but breath – that which brought life to those living.

And Annaliese, God bless her, was breathing soundly this night, and the soft strain of her lungs expanding thrilled her doctor like nothing ever did. Foolishly, he thought for a few precious minutes that maybe she would conquer this illness. Carlisle could not deny that he felt something stronger for her than he had felt for his other patients. She had been one of so few to share his passionate faith, and this was strange to him, mostly because she was still _so young _to have this kind of spiritual enlightenment. Perhaps it had been brought about by this very illness. After all, being uncertain which day would be her last, it would have been very easy to find peace nowhere but in the promise of salvation.

Carlisle saw this in her eyes. Annaliese _was _a believer. For this, he hoped, God would have mercy on her, and allow her to live...

Annaliese had chosen this night to ask her doctor for his first name, so he gave it to her, and she smiled. She said that it was beautiful, and had his mother known her son would be beautiful enough to bear such a name?

Carlisle wanted to sob into this girl's shoulder and tell her that his mother had died before she had the chance to even see his face as an infant. But he only smiled back bashfully at Annaliese's compliment and wondered that she had never once mentioned his appearance until this night.

She waited for this night before mentioning many strange things. She asked him strange questions. What he thought about life, what he thought about love. It was as if she had known deep in her heart that this was her last night to ask these things. Had she anticipated the looming serenity that bore the marker of a last breath? He had to wonder.

"Is it terribly selfish that I've been wishing to live on, only to find out if I had a true love?" she eventually asked him with a sad smile and a chintz-like voice.

It was a very "sixteen-year-old-like" question to ask.

Carlisle smiled back in understanding, shaking his head. "No, not at all," he whispered sincerely. "I think that is a wonderful wish to live for."

Her eyes brightened in a curious, disconcerting wonder as she gazed up at him, and he almost knew the question she would ask before it came. "Have you found your true love, Doctor Cullen?"

His lips parted to respond, but an unexpected pause paralyzed him for a few aching moments as thoughts of Esme pressed their precious prints into the malleable cushion of his mind. The woman he had saved from death could have very well been... It was obvious to him by now that he loved Esme with every shred of his being, and the love he felt for her was a mutiny, stretching like a restless lion in the confinement of his heart – an incredibly forceful breed of love he could only guess was reserved for his _true love. _

Oh, but he was not fooling anyone. Deep inside, that restless lion was purring at the very thoughts of Esme and love, all because this innocent girl had asked him if he had found _the one _yet.

"Yes," his heart spoke for him. "I believe I have."

Annaliese smiled then, with a warmth he had not seen from her for weeks. "And does she know?"

As quickly as it had risen, Carlisle's heart sunk with remorse, ashamed more that he had to counter the hopefulness in this young girl's eyes than to admit the truth.

"No." He looked down to his folded hands on the bed, twisting his thumbs against one another awkwardly. "We've never spoken about it," he whispered gloomily, and only when the words were tangible did he realize how dreadful it was that he had still done nothing about it.

"Why not?" His soft-spoken interrogator furrowed her brow with pitying confusion.

His fingers stilled their irrationally nervous twitching and he took a deep breath. "I am...not certain she feels as deeply for me as I do for her."

So partial was this truth, it literally stung.

He looked up into the eyes of his attentive patient, almost fearing reprimand of some sort. But her face was unchanging in its delicate impassiveness, as it always had been, and inevitably always would be.

"You should tell her." As weak as Annaliese was, her voice was so quietly passionate_, _it tortured him to hear it.

It tortured Carlisle even more that he could not confide in her the fullness of truth, the heartbreaking complexity of the situation that expanded far beyond any fear of reciprocation. There was the difference in their control, the pressure he might impress upon Esme's will for faith, the erratic uncertainty of a tainted newborn who had yet to find her calling before he could name it for her. There were so many things that made a love between he and Esme unimaginable, almost impossible.

Should he ever lose her,he decided he would devote himself entirely to the Lord at long last, as was his human destiny to fulfill. This option needed to be open if all else failed him. He would – as the prophets promised – be celibate for this very cause.

Carlisle stared at his patient, lost in a solemn storm of thoughts that could never be unveiled, until her raspy voice softly invaded his private debate with another odd question.

"Do you wear that cross around your neck at the hospital, or only when you come to visit me?"

It was a very observant kind of question, and Carlisle was startled for a moment before he could think of how to answer it. The space between his collar burned a bit as he reached up for the glinting item that held her attention.

"I wear this everywhere. I never take it off," he said quietly, rubbing the tiny golden crucifix between his fingers. "But I do hide it while I'm at the hospital," he admitted as he watched the light in her eyes flicker.

"You shouldn't hide it." There was no reprimand to her tone – only a sad suggestion – and Carlisle knew very well that this was God's heavenly voice speaking through Annaliese's lips. "Your faith is the most beautiful part of you."

The prickling of venom simmered behind his eyes as he gazed shamefully down at her, and she stared up at him with an innocent intensity lingering behind thin lashes. Carlisle knew now that all of her sincerely whispered _shoulds _and _should nots _would echo in his memory, haunt him, perhaps forever after she was gone...

"I was so very blessed to have you as my doctor, Carlisle."

This was _her _voice, fair and sure. A whisper that offered no turbulence to the empty air.

She still smiled – that dim little smile – somehow looking so content at the climax of her unfairly unfulfilling life.

Carlisle felt himself shaking his head softly, but he didn't know why. He wanted to hush her, tell her _"Don't you dare go on using past tense verbs already..." _But he would not be fooling anyone. In the whispering sanctuary of this room, this candlelit bubble of her bedside, they were the only ones. And as a loyal doctor and a trusting patient, they were both quietly aware of what was long ago pronounced an inevitability.

Annaliese's breathing began to hitch slightly, and Carlisle quickly found both her hands to fold them between his. There was no warmth to be gathered from her flesh anymore. She was as devoid of heat as he was.

She choked on the air, the delicate whimpering sounds of her distress churning his stomach. He held her hands firmly and leaned closer from her bedside, whispering assurances to calm her.

"You're fine... Just breathe, dear. There, there... You're going to be all right." He lifted her hands to hold them against his chest and willed her to follow his lungs. "Breathe with me, Annaliese."

Her fingers trembled in his grip and he saw the will there, in her tightly closed eyes, in the set form of her tiny lips. She was far too determined for someone so beautifully helpless. She had such dangerous determination.

One of the candles on her night table flickered stubbornly, and his eyes strayed to watch it as its fire dimmed deceptively then relaxed again, tall and glowing and healthy. The flames of candles were always being reborn.

The renewed light fell over the childlike face in bed, and Carlisle sighed in relief as her struggle came to rest, her lungs resuming an even but inadequate rhythm.

It would not be enough to keep her heart steady for very long. He knew then that this was her last minute – _their _last minute together. He had been anticipating her time for so long, but somehow he couldn't face it now that it was really here. He felt so trapped, so very frightened, so cut off from his control. As a doctor, he saw patients die by the week, but it never got any easier. And Lord, he had let himself grow far too close to this young woman.

But she did not have to die.

In a stifling flicker of hope, he thought of keeping her forever.

The soft shifting of her blankets muffled in his ears as she stirred uncomfortably, her eyes locked onto his as though looking away would stop her heart right there – as if they were underwater, and she was drowning, and he was the only one who could bring her to the surface. He could bring her air, he could give her life. It was almost as if she knew this.

"I don't know...if I am ready...to die..."

Oh, why must she say such a thing to him? Had she no idea what this meant for his resolve?

In that moment Carlisle saw blinding flashes of God's power, beacons of heaven's grace, vulnerable cries for help, the vivid green-eyed face of Elizabeth Masen.

Taunting whimpers of a distant dying woman cooed to him in the depth of his conscious. _"Everything in your power... You must do everything in _your_ power..." _

Shaking his head of the memories, Carlisle put the panic to slumber and gently pressed Annaliese's cold little hands to his stagnant heart, just as one of the last two candles burned out by her bedside. He had to be strong now. For her.

"Only God knows when you are ready, Annaliese. Trust Him, for He will know when the moment is right to take you." Carlisle's words were sorely hypocritical while his mind whirled in feverish indecision. Would God allow a humble vampire to make this choice _for _her? For Him?

Her eyes glimmered, for once looking not like raging rapids, but like a calm and steady river, and then a rippling pond.

"Hold me," she whimpered helplessly, her voice so much like a child's that it literally startled him.

Looking down at their already linked hands in confusion, he gently tightened his grip, noticing that it was not only _her_ hands that were shaking...

"I have you, Annaliese," he whispered in a voice he barely recognized as his own. "I won't let go." He stroked the back of her hand with careful fingers, as if it were made of tissue-thin glass.

She turned her face to rest against the pillow contentedly, blissfully oblivious to the pang in his chest which was slowly pushing intolerable intensity.

"I am not afraid to die," she sighed, as though reaching the realization for the first time, too late. "Not anymore."

Her heartbeat faltered, skipping crucial thumps that slowed the rest of her organs, and she did not even feel it. Carlisle wanted to weep for her, but she would not let him – not when her eyes were telling his that they would both soon see the sun.

Her eyelids rested slowly, and he could see every aching glisten in the beds of her eyes, everything she would miss, everything that was taken from her in her tragically short life. How exquisitely awful he felt in that moment, thinking of how many useless years _he _had to his age – and he had no use for these old, wasted years of solitude. He could have made a lifetime for her – he could have sliced out that wasted time from his infinite memory and his eternally damned body...and he could have given it all to her.

Annaliese could have had a life. As her doctor, Carlisle should have been able to give her this.

Those eyelids were like delicate petals, opening gently one last time to pierce him with her crystal blue gaze.

"Pray for me, Doctor."

It was her final request. Not a plea, not a cry of desperation. A simple request. And like every other request she had uttered, he saw that it was fulfilled.

He watched her with heavy eyes as she wilted like a flower in frost – slowly, peacefully – and that made it all the more tormenting to watch her. Her blood was simmering stubbornly even as she surrendered herself to the dying cold. Her scarlet secret was tempting him now... She had such sweet, clean blood – young, virginal blood. With every wistful pulse of her dying heart, Carlisle drew his sword to the inspiration and wrestled his will to sink his teeth into the slender throat of cooling blood before him.

He knew it was impossible. As he watched the last candle's flame shrink to a somber blue ember, he knew it was impossible.

Her mother was crying already, behind that wall, not even needing to hear her daughter's final farewell. She just knew. A mother could sense when the heart of her child had ceased its beating. A mother's senses were more sound than even a vampire's were when it came to their children.

There was no way for Carlisle to turn Annaliese without being discovered, no way to protect himself from suspicions when he was right here, in a private home, with a family of seven beating hearts who would have heard the girl's cries as he burned her with his venom.

But he still considered it. Lord help him, in that moment he heard her last pulse flutter away, _he almost did it_.

He saw brisk, bright images of Annaliese, hand in hand with Edward, and it was like God had placed them there just to taunt him. He saw her face, angelic beyond reason in her immortality, her porcelain cheek pressed against the angular face of his smiling son, her waterfalls of long blond hair being braided by Esme's loving hands.

Annaliese could have been _theirs_. A mate for Edward. A daughter for Esme.

He came so close.

But God had stopped him with a gentle hand, and Carlisle let Him take her.


	8. The Fires of Heaven, The Waters of Hell

**The Fires of Heaven, The Waters of Hell**

_This is a character study I worked on for a very long time to give some more insight into Edward and his relationship with Carlisle, as well as his reflections on the "state of a vampire's soul" at this point in time. _

* * *

Edward remembered the first time he saw Doctor Carlisle Cullen.

The human boy's eyes had been hazy from the trickery of his illness, his view further impaired by the damp strands of deep bronze hair dropping into his forehead. He was practically pasted to the mattress of that stiff old hospital bed. Nothing was comfortable, in both his mind and his body.

His mother's voice was a low, sweet hum in the back of his mind, linked to this particular memory. She must have been speaking when Carlisle first entered the room.

This image survived even over the crossing between life and death; Edward could not forget. Tall, in a white coat, holding that leather bag with a one handed grip that never let go – skin like snow; blinding in such a dank, small space. His hair was unreal in its blondness, his eyes were frightening in their sharp golden glow – in those eyes, Edward saw the honey-coated tribulations of men and the glittering gates of the kingdom to come… All of it crudely watered down by the imperfection of a human's inadequate gaze.

But he remembered it, as clear as God's gift of sight could offer.

Edward remembered the first thing he'd said to Doctor Carlisle Cullen.

_"A glass of cold water, please, Doctor?"_

That was the coldest glass of water he'd ever drunk.

His pillow was too hot beneath his neck, but he hadn't the strength to turn it over. His doctor did it for him. Edward hadn't needed to ask. The doctor just knew.

Carlisle Cullen was so strange. Edward liked that strangeness. He liked "_different._" It was hard to find something interesting in a hospital, but Carlisle had been quite interesting. So out of place, Edward thought. Like a white wolf in a pack of gray hounds. Like a golden statue among a display of bronze. Like one single tree with leaves of emerald to survive the end of autumn.

_What on earth is a man like this doing here?_ Edward wondered through his aching head and his sore throat.

Carlisle seemed so strong, holding himself with such impressive dignity, and the sickness and infirmity that surrounded him only enhanced his searing glow. He was like a beacon in a sea of destitute souls. A servant, a saint, a healer, a _king_.

A kind face among the weary; a sure hand among the weak.

Edward had been fascinated by him.

He shared his dreams with Doctor Cullen, in his groggy, unfamiliar voice, every night in that hospital. Even though every word took incredible effort to force through his sore swollen throat, he _needed _to speak with this mysterious doctor. Edward, being a hopeful young man, even revealed his secret aspirations of becoming a war hero with the this caring stranger. Oh, had he only known...

Edward remembered the last night he spent with Doctor Carlisle Cullen.

He was almost disturbed by the calmness in the doctor's unreal voice; almost blown away by the divine inflections he heard in every word the doctor spoke. He believed, in those last few moments, that Carlisle had stepped out from between the ancient, musty pages of the Bible.

Edward never thought Carlisle was angel, but he did believe Carlisle was possessed by the order of some Holy Spirit. The presence of the doctor was somehow purifying, edifying, mollifying at the brink of fear and uncertainty. Even on his deathbed, there was Doctor Cullen beside him, exuding the clement chill of his presence, his eyes still and unblinking as he watched lives dance tauntingly away.

As Edward lay dying that night, his thoughts were of only one thing: _his mother. _

Despite his poor hearing, he'd heard her last breath. He heard her whisper final words to their mysterious golden doctor; probably some eccentric last wish to relay for her son in the next bed over.

Edward cried for the second time since he'd turned seventeen. He thought he was a man, until life set him in this stuffy hospital ward and sucked the strength from his limbs. His tears were tangy and frustrating. They burned his eyes and made his cheeks itchy. They blurred the world around him, and made his head ache for relief.

But through his tears, he saw the gold gush into his subconscious. He knew Doctor Cullen was still there; he heard the saintly voice whisper into his ear, perhaps the soothing incantation of salvation…

What a salvation it was.

The bite was not what hurt. The bite was not painful.

The pain started so long after the time his teeth pierced the skin that Edward had a whole second, it seemed, to see his entire life, frame by frame, flash behind his eyes.

His eyes were wide open, but he saw nothing. He was in a bristling black world, deep in the center of the earth. He was rocketing forward through a forest of fiery thorns that stuck and clung to his skin. He was being dunked from towers of steel into vats of molten oil. Gnarly metal hands gripped him, snapped the bones of his back, and dipped him into a suffocating blend of boiling demon tears.

There is nothing that can describe the brutal terror of the transformation. Oh, it was not just a "burning" as they'd all liked to say. It was precisely this: everything from his wildest nightmares returning in greater magnitude than the imagination allowed. Everything evil he had once believed too horrible to be real came to life.

It was the devil laughing in his face, the toxins and the sickness and the feeling of dislocated innards that seized him right before vomiting. It was this feeling of having _no control – _that no matter how terrible the pain became, he could do nothing to stop it, nothing to even mask all of the things he worked so faithfully to _avoid _in his life – all of them, charging at him full force, twice a second, for a length of time that was inhumane.

It was like waking up in a nightmare, as he should put it in its mildest form. Why, this doctor had put him through this unforgettable hellfire just to _keep him_ for eternity? For what purpose?

_"I care for you Edward," _he'd said, hands rooted on his heart, looking more golden than he had ever looked before._ "I care for you like family. So much that I could not bear to watch you die!"_

And while he was saying "care" out loud, Carlisle's heart was screaming "love."

He loved Edward. For no reason, as far as the boy could grasp.

Edward wished he could feel love again – love like he remembered it from his human life. But it was a void emotion. As much as he would ever grow to like or even care about Carlisle in return, he doubted a soulless being could ever truly love another.

Who gave Carlisle the right to claim they _had _souls? Better yet, who gave Carlisle the right to slice necks with his teeth to make a family?

Edward knew only one thing: It had not been God who planted the seed.

God could not be responsible for leaving him here, in some cruel, twisted version of the world he once knew. Nothing made sense. He was a killer without cause. He was a slave to his senses. An animal. Not a man... an animal.

It was so hard for Edward, watching the same fate unfold for their poor Esme. He listened to the torture of the transformation for a second ride in her mind. It had been different than his, but no less excruciating. _More orange than red, more searing than scorching, more stretching and pulling than snapping and shredding..._ And she would never be able to forget it. She would wake up, just as cursed as he had been.

She destroyed things and growled and whimpered and sobbed for no reason during those first hellish days. Edward could hardly believe this had been _him _once. Ironically enlightened, he was, knowing Carlisle had once put up with this all on his own...

Edward had killed two men, during those first days in the empty lands of Illinois. One was a hitchhiker. Edward had jumped out of the car while Carlisle was driving. He hadn't even realized until he found the car dented and in flames. The blood was all over his shirt. All over his hands.

The second victim was a mailman.

That was the day Carlisle made the rule that all mail would be retrieved from the post office only.

Edward did not look at mailboxes for months after that.

It took so long for Edward to recognize everything Carlisle did for him, every day. It was insanity, the way Carlisle brought him clothing, gave him books to read, bought and tuned a piano, cleaned up after him, told him he was proud of him... for no reason at all.

_"Why do you care about me so much?"_ Edward would boldly ask the doctor. _"Why do you bother?"_

_"Because I've always dreamed of having a son of my own."_

A son.

Edward's initial reaction to the word was one of fearful defense. He _had _a father once. No one could replace that man... But at the same time, he barely remembered that Mr. Masen who had raised him. Mr. Masen was a human – now, he was a corpse in the ground. No longer could they be related between species. As a vampire, Edward supposed, he would have to belong to a vampire father.

Carlisle was a vampire. Carlisle could be his father...

And he was, for a time. Oh, he still was. Deep in the frozen wastelands of his confused and longing heart, it was impossible for Edward to see Carlisle as anything but a father. Yet he always hesitated to _call _him a father. It just seemed unnatural, uncalled for. They could do without it; they could keep things simple... impersonal.

But Carlisle would not stop calling him 'son.' And every time he called him that, Edward felt a jolt of happiness that he thought might have been a little confirmation from God.

But no, God did not interfere with the lives of immortals.

Carlisle would insist otherwise, walking about with his Bible tucked under his wrist and that frustrating cross around his neck – his predictable choice of flimsy armor. He was so disturbingly passionate about the Holy Trinity, Edward had to wonder if Carlisle had gone off to Seminary and gotten ordained behind his back.

Carlisle's true calling had been that of a priest. Somehow, it was difficult to refuse a priest.

Edward went through a portion of that year lost to an obsession. Obsession with faith and finding the truth. He finally started to _listen _to the things Carlisle was telling him. Learning to juggle the core weight of the mind with the wrappings of spoken words. Edward watched the wisdom of ages sparkle in the realm of the doctor's memories. The places he'd been, the history he'd seen, each colorful flash of a foreign country molding together to form a bright globe of _personal experience. _It was a harmonious but complicated song, well worth a listen.

This man's mind was so fruitful, so passionate, so fiercely intimate with the world of men and immortals alike. Carlisle was a link to the world that was waiting for Edward. Carlisle's mind was Edward's inspiration.

Forgiveness for the curse Carlisle had given him was long forgotten. After all, what did it matter _why _he had bitten him? Edward could be a man in _this _life. He could redeem the chances he had lost; pick up where he'd left off. There was an arena of opportunity awaiting him, and he thought he could conquer it like a gladiator, just as Carlisle Cullen had done.

He followed Carlisle everywhere. Together, they traveled across the Midwestern states, setting up little false lives for themselves in the rainiest of cities. They rode by empty train into the mountains of Alaska, and joined temporary forces with the Denali coven while there. The existence of others who shared their lifestyle gave Edward a renewal of hope for his future, and from there on the inspiration was spinning under his heels wherever he went. Carlisle reminded him every day of the worth of his efforts.

Through the worst, they were still a team; sometimes they clashed, but they were dynamic like this. They were smart and clever and scheming. The life of a vampire was suddenly not such a terror because Edward shared it with a man who he finally considered his friend. Edward was slowly learning the art of control, with this friend's help. Carlisle's encouragement was, he could admit, addicting. Edward had a weakness for praise and encouragement. If Carlisle said he was impressed, Edward beamed with delight. And maybe they _were_ like a father and son.

Maybe... he could live with that.

One rainy Saturday, they stumbled into Ashland while trying to outrun a thunderstorm during a hunt. The nearby towns were nice, they supposed – filled with quiet, unassuming folk who would likely not take an interest in outsiders such as themselves. Together they'd unveiled the notorious Chartercrest estate. They'd purchased the property with a good laugh about it being "fit for the haunting." They decided not to bother with renovations. The front of the mansion was fantastically foreboding as it was...

Carlisle filled the empty study with his million dollar history. Edward filled the music room with his million dollar compositions.

Carlisle offered himself to the hospital staff. They accepted him.

Edward offered himself to the academy. They accepted him.

Things were just starting to go so well...

Then Carlisle found Esme.

With all of the thoughts Carlisle housed inside his mind, Edward had only picked out this particular face several times at most. It was a strange, slippery sort of memory, and he suspected that Carlisle chose to relive it in careful company.

Carlisle shied away from the rare thought of that sixteen-year-old farmgirl. The freckled face of innocence wincing in delicate pain, the trembling pink lips twisting into a hesitant, lopsided smile. Yellow lace ripped over her crooked leg. Caramel ringlets and wide hazel eyes.

Those images were the first Edward saw when he came home that fateful night. He smelled the brilliant bouquet of her blood. He saw the red fingerprints on the banister and the dead leaves on the stairs. Then he heard the heartbeat of a human coming from the doctor's bedroom.

This was when it all resurrected. The anger, the resentment, the madness.

He wished Carlisle could have seen the price of his decision.

Edward wondered like a child, in his lonely shell of solitude during those anxious hours of Esme's transformation, _"Why would Carlisle do this? Was I not enough? Was he displeased with me? Does he truly wish to replace me? How could I have missed these things...?"_

Edward had seen nothing of warning in Carlisle's mind.

Carlisle had gone to the hospital the preceding night like any other... They'd parted with an inside joke about the ghost of the dead sailor – one they'd made together. Carlisle had smiled at him. He'd even promised to take Edward hunting as soon as he got back from his shift... But he was so late that Edward had gone off hunting on his own that morning.

It was typical, sometimes, for the doctor to return later than he'd say. Emergencies came up, and Edward had learned not to worry about it.

He thought he would come home to the scene of Carlisle spewing his predictable streams of apologies. He thought he might hear an interesting story about some chaotic mass casualty at the hospital. He thought, maybe, he might have just been in for some playful practical joke.

But it was no joke waiting for him when he'd opened the door.

With every fierce feminine cry that pierced the night, Edward's memories were charred as he sat in the cellar alone, feeling so forgotten. Had he not been Carlisle's one and only companion? Had he not been the trusted face to tell all his secrets when the day was done? Had he not just a month prior accepted the doctor's surname as his own with pride? Had he not given Carlisle every reason to believe he was finally ready to become his _son? _

He'd _wanted_ to be like Carlisle. He'd even admired him. For all the mind-reading poor Edward had to do each day, he sometimes forgot that his own thoughts were not audible to those around him.

Carlisle would never know any of this unless and until Edward _told _him these things.

Edward would have to speak. He _would _have spoken. But pride would not let him at this point.

He'd thought about it, during the "bonding festivities" of Esme's newborn drama. He'd thought of spilling his insecurity to Carlisle while they held her, arm in arm as she screamed for blood, her cries echoing in the catacombs of that stone cellar.

He thought he could ask for a second chance. He thought he could tell Carlisle how much he might... _need _him.

But... Esme was just too damn loud.

With Esme's arrival, Edward regretted to say, all of his efforts were halted; set back a step or two, and put on pause. He had to accept that Carlisle was perhaps not all he had known him to be.

Edward sorely missed the days when he had _known _his almost-father. Now Carlisle was all too preoccupied with piecing together the puzzle that was _woman_. And how complicated a puzzle that was.

Edward was tempted to help Carlisle find some of the missing pieces – those pieces he only knew from the foreign but strangely enchanting world of Esme's flitting mind.

After the initial shock, Edward took reluctant pity on them both. He slowly came to realize that he was not being fully rejected by Carlisle... Every time he passed by, Carlisle told him through a stray thought just how deeply he missed his son. That was a recurring reminder, but it never lost its value. Edward was always so pleased to hear it. Even if he never showed his gratitude by expression.

Once Carlisle had silently asked for his son's _help _in taming the restless newborn together, Edward finally felt he may be able to warm up to this Esme. She was, after all his worries, not as bad as he thought. She was kind, and genuine, and sensitive. Almost like his own mother had been.

But why was he comparing her to his mother? Esme was _not _his mother. She was not meant to replace that role a woman had so nobly played in his life! No more than Carlisle was presumptuous enough to fill the role of his father...

Yet, he could see them being a compassionate pair...

Edward was made bitter by this. Having never felt such powerful love for another in this afterlife, he was now seeing it between his doctor and this woman. And for all the theoretical talk Carlisle did about finding a mate one day, Edward had never really believed it to be a possibility.

Then Esme came, and suddenly _love was possible. _She seemed to emit love out of every pore for everything she encountered. And Edward had never used the word _love _for his father. Never out loud. Esme came closer to saying it every day.

Perhaps some vampires did keep their souls, Edward thought. His awakening theory of the "stained glass soul" was once again a genuine hope. Perhaps Esme and Carlisle were lucky enough to keep their hold on their souls while crossing into the afterlife.

Then. if they _did _have their souls, it only made sense that they seek out each other and be joined in love everlasting.

Oh, but he could not let that happen! For Carlisle to be mated would spell Edward's certain doom. How, then, would he ever redeem his relationship with this man who he had gotten so close to over all those years alone? If he could just discourage them from a romance, he could keep a steady grip on the situation before it ballooned out of his control.

Between the longing sighs from Esme, the silent purrs from Carlisle, the way they both whimpered the other's name in their mind with every other thought... It was too much for Edward to withstand. He hadn't meant to hurt them; he'd wanted to instead "gently nudge" them apart. Give them some space so that he could find some room between them.

He'd managed in convincing Esme that her feelings were mere infatuation. He thought himself so clever when he'd first said it, but after hearing her emotional shower of sorrow, he almost wished to take the words back. He'd felt badly for twisting her thoughts... He tried to get closer to her to make up for it.

He succeeded in this.

So successful was he in coming closer to Esme, he had felt the closest feeling to _love _for her that he had ever felt before in this life.

With Esme, Edward saw, _love _must have been possible.

This kind of love made him feel weak, and a little vulnerable. He had spent such a long time convinced that he could _not _love, and suddenly he was feeling fleeting echoes of it for this woman who he'd only met through Carlisle's distant memories...

It was with Carlisle where Edward feared he could not make peace. Any time he thought he _might_ love him as a father, something was still missing. Something was keeping them from coming together in that way – a missing link. Carlisle wanted to hear these words from Edward, "_I love you as my father, and I want to be your son."_

Edward had seen the vision in Carlisle's mind where he was approached by this tall, lanky, copper-haired hero who spoke with inspired eyes and a loving heart. The key word was "love." Though they had both given shy acceptance of the titles of "father" and "son", Edward had never claimed to love Carlisle... Never out loud. As much as he wished he could give Carlisle this, the doubts of love ever being true in a soulless vampire would not let him go.

Who could ever show Edward that his soul was present? Who could ever give proof to the claim that a soul was needed to feel love again? Who could ever assure him that it was _safe _to love and become _attached _to others in this complicated and burdensome life?

Would it be safer just to stay this way? Impersonal, and untouched, and maybe I love you but I really just _care deeply _for you, and isn't that enough for all of us to get by...?

But Carlisle would never be made to believe love was impossible in this life. As long as God was present, he'd always said, _love _was possible. Esme had been malleable and so consumed with belittling herself that she'd accepted the curse of infatuation with begrudging ease. She, like Edward, was still tentative to believe she possessed the fullness of a genuine soul.

But Carlisle, with all of his being, believed he _had _a soul. His faith told him this was true. Oh, he was so sure of it. And this posed a problem for Edward.

Carlisle was far too wise to be fooled into believing his love for Esme was anything less than true.

Edward had seen Carlisle's strangled fantasies of both taking Esme to his bed, and murdering the man who'd abused her. The hot and cold would counterbalance each other, erupting in a wave of furious passion that he was so unused to feeling from Carlisle.

_He'd swipe his hand gently through her silken hair, then slam his fist forcefully into the chest of her wretched husband. _

_He'd lay his lips upon her heart, then slit the throat of the nameless brute with his teeth._

_He'd pull the sheets over her trembling body when he had finished loving her, then he'd pull the black bag over Charles Evenson when he had finished killing him…_

Feeling noble, Edward had spoken to Carlisle about finishing Evenson in discreet fashion, but Carlisle had gone all righteous and backed out at the last minute. When Edward offered to do the job himself, Carlisle thrust the Bible under his nose and hissed something about justice being God's concern alone.

But in all of Carlisle's thoughts, Edward still managed to pick out the familiar flicker of doubt – the twinge of anger that threatened to flower into white-hot rage when he thought the name Evenson.

Only Carlisle's love for Esme could have triggered such a foreign and conflicting surge of power within him.

The only thing Edward could tell the doctor was to wait.

If he waited, and Esme never came to him, waving the white silk banner of faith, then nothing would happen. Maybe, just maybe, everything would cool away. Maybe, with enough time and patience, and a few more careful nudges, Esme and Carlisle would give up on the notion of romance. They could live just as happily being close friends, couldn't they? They could still love one another without being mated... couldn't they?

Edward sat back and watched while his plans slowly crumbled in front of his eyes.

It was just as he feared. Their desire for each other only grew steadily stronger, and it was insufferable to witness. He felt simultaneously thrilled and frightened, and disappointed and lost. How would he design this mess into something controllable?

He couldn't.

His life was a chaotic crumble under the guise of a deceivingly calm series of masks. He was burning in the fires of heaven; he was drowning in the waters of hell.

He had only two options left: Add to the very mess he'd created by organizing a complete rebellion, or _encourage _Esme and Carlisle to follow the very love their helpless hearts had planned.

It was already clear in his mind, that _both_ would be done before this mess resolved itself.

He just wondered which would come first.

* * *

_**A/N:**__ I hope everyone can sympathize with the irony in Edward's situation. He seems to be a ruthless troublemaker in the story, and while his intentions are often self-centered, he has reasons behind his behavior. I see Edward as being much more internally disturbed, especially during his early years. To adjust to such a gift like mind reading would take more than a few years to get used to - he'd only overheard Carlisle for the most part up until Esme came along, and now he's just overwhelmed and doesn't know where to turn for control._

_Edward believes, because he has no soul, that he cannot love the way he sees Carlisle and Esme love. But this is untrue, because Edward really does love (as he later learns, especially while being with Esme)... he's only keeping himself from recognizing the feeling to enforce his delusion that vampires like him are in fact soulless. As a result, Carlisle distances himself from Edward in bringing home Esme, thinking Edward might never accept or return his love. _

_At this point, Edward fears Carlisle and Esme becoming a couple because he thinks it will distance him more from Carlisle, whom he has spent so long just getting close enough to call him his father. But poor Edward fails to recognize that the coupling of Carlisle and Esme is in fact, the cure to his dilemma! Once he permits the idea for their love to blossom in his mind, he will finally see the beauty in that relationship, and ultimately, he will gain so much more love from the both of _them_ once they have devoted themselves to each other as a family. _


	9. How Bright Does it Burn?

**How Bright Does It Burn?**

_This chapter is essentially an exploration of Carlisle's sexual interest in Esme. Because the extent of his feelings are hidden for the most part from Esme's point of view, I wanted to address them in a bit more depth here. _

* * *

A man's heart always yearns for more than it can withstand.

Living for centuries without company is a curse for any heart, but a much stronger one for the heart whose compassion turns the very world on its axis.

It is not often that a heart so tender is found hiding in the chest of any man. Many men would confess that they coveted such a heart – a heart so pure and so willing, so infinitely open to care for everything and everyone. But these men are blind to the perils which come along with it.

Carlisle Cullen was anything but blind.

This heart he possessed was a blessing. He knew this. He even treasured it. With his hands folded firmly, he thanked God every day that he had been blessed with such a heart. He asked for it to retain its soundness well into the years he saw ahead. By this sweet blessing, Carlisle was able to love with dangerous capabilities. Even as a human, he remembered the reckless and sometimes less than intelligent means he would risk just to show someone he cared. Even if that person never knew the identity of their charitable champion. Carlisle didn't care. He never did.

No credit. No acknowledgement. No _"Thank you for showing such mercy."_

It never mattered to him. But the heart, without reciprocation of the love it exudes, becomes lonely quite fast.

Carlisle would often say to himself in those early days, _"I am not _really _alone. Look around at all of these people I see and speak with every day!" _Fruitlessly, he tried to fool himself into thinking that loneliness was whatever he made it to be. He was, after all, in the company of many humans once he was brave enough to return to society.

They spoke with him. They made intelligent and insightful conversation. They invited him places. They even appreciated him.

But there was something missing.

At the end of the day, they would part ways with him, abandon him after they had taken what they wanted. One moment he was a handsome and dignified young doctor, and the next he was a destitute orphan dressed in dirt and rags, left in the street and unnoticed through the night. He was a starving child with nowhere to run home to. Beneath this sick, impersonal, irresistible facade.

The sting of this realization made Carlisle think a scorpion had crawled into his heart. They did not really _care _about him.

No one stayed up at night worrying about his well-being. No one would ever race a rainstorm just to give him a final goodbye. No one stayed. No one came and went, then came back again, all for him. No one rushed to his side and wrapped their arms around him; no one really _aspired _to touch him. Even the ones who had liked him never truly desired to have him closer. If only they'd known how much he wanted to becloser. Closer to anyone. Anything.

This yearning for closeness was so complicated. It was always changing over time, shifting with the spectrum of his emotions. It was not like wanting material. It was so transcendental, so indefinable. At times it was a bruise in the corner of his heart, and other times it hit him from the inside, full force, and that bruise became a blanket of blackness. All desire to love was tucked away, and he became colder than his curse.

But in the very core of that coldness, in the frostbitten home of his deeply buried heart, there was an isolated fire within him. He felt it burning every day. He tried to ignore it; sometimes he tried to smother it with denial, or purge it with the waters of hope. But there was no way to keep the flames from resurrecting again in his heart – like a phoenix, bright and beautiful. Fiercely it rose from the embers, over and over and over.

It _was _a beautiful fire he held within. Carlisle could not deny the flames God had carefully lit inside of him could burn many a soul with their power. But such power was divine, and the divine could only be acquired through God Himself. Carlisle waited for the moment when God would allow him to unleash this fire. Anticipation was brewing behind every action and every motive. Would _this _be the day? Would this be the one? Would the fire be free at last?

Sometimes he thought he might be afraid when the moment arrived. Sometimes his throat tightened, and his ankles tingled, wishing to run away from it when he saw it coming. But other times he wanted to rush into it, like a reckless bull charging at a scarlet cape. He wanted to dive headfirst without holding his breath. He wanted to strip himself at last of all his restraint and jump from the corner of the world without looking back.

Then Carlisle met Esme, and he wondered.

He wondered if _her_ fire was as consuming, as untamable as his.

How bright did it burn?

Would it outshine his?

Would it accept the heat of his flames?

Would their fires dance together if given the chance, swirling and mingling in an aurora of unseen colors and burning aromas?

He thought he had caught the spice of her fire as it raged deep within. The perfume of her endless desire, he believed, could rival the vastness of boundless oceans and seas. Esme's heart, he imagined, would be like his own private galaxy, filled with stars that pulsed and devoured him, and clung to his skin like lavish kisses. They were searing and brilliant and they never, ever ended.

He believed there was a world out there he had yet to discover, a world in some dimension between forces and feelings. A world only he and Esme had held the means to unlock. Only together could they open the gates to this mysterious world where to become lost was their only goal.

This world was dangerous, built only for them – if they had the courage and the will to explore it. Carlisle had heard in all the fables and myths from the past, that it was not easy to leave this world once it had been opened. Once they were inside, it was tempting to become trapped. Tempting to raise the drawbridge and summon the shadows and never leave.

In this world of fragile oceans and velvet skies, harmony trampled harm. One glance was a bolt of lightning. One touch set fire to control. One speck of dust was a disruption. Everything was harnessed, cleaved, _forced _into one. The colors here were one thousand and one exquisite textures, each begging to be tasted, each needing its moment to rule over the senses. And the senses themselves were living, breathing organisms, swimming and crawling in a vast jungle of deeply hidden mysteries.

Carlisle felt lost just thinkingabout this world.

Once the door to this world was opened, it was all but impossible to close. Even when it looked like it was shut completely, the keyhole might let in a single ray of light – a reminder of the bright fires and taunting colors burning within.

Nothing could come between the lock and its key.

Carlisle wanted to share this world with Esme. To even get a glimpse of the wonders that awaited him, he needed _her_. God had given him a key on the day of his birth, but to this day Carlisle had never found the lock it opened.

He thought Esme might have his answer.

The heavens struck him with a blazing shower of enlightenment when Esme first opened her eyes to him. Only once had it happened, but in that moment he thought it clear as the sun in the sky. Her eyes beat into his soul with every slow blink, and he thought he'd heard their tender whisper as she pressed her palm flush against his burning heart.

_"Unlock me." _

He could not have heard her fairly. After all, no one but Carlisle knew the secret of the key God had given him. But what if Esme knew? How had she discovered his most carefully guarded secret?

_"Unlock me. Please, unlock me."_

If there was nothing stirring the coals of what he'd witnessed, he must have been sleeping like an infant in a vacuous crevice of oblivion.

Her eyes were communicating so much – too much – racing whispers and unfinished sentences spilling like syrup in her gaze. She had drenched his heart, his soul, and that tragically empty place that lay between.

He was impaled by the power of that stare.

And then it was gone.

He thought of her constantly. She was like a sweet song, always stuck in his head. Her voice, her face, her eyes, her hands, her always-bare feet – all of it, there in his thoughts like a wild storm of taunting, foreign femininity.

Esme was, in no way, an example of perfection. And this was why she was so perfect to him.

She feared things, she missed things, she found things saddening. She was sympathetic toward the caterpillar who could not make his cocoon in time before the rainy season. She was a bit of a mess in the mind sometimes. She stammered when she was unsure of what to say. She needed to borrow his finger to make a proper paper flower.

There was a crooked quirk to her mouth when she smiled, a childlike suppleness that turned her round cheeks into pale pink cushions. Her toes were too small for the rest of her foot. Her knees, when he got a rare glimpse of them, still boasted those awkward angles and curves from having broken them so many times as a human child. She was sensitive and sweet and so frustratingly silent when he wanted her to sing her emotions for him out loud.

He hadn't really _loved _her in the beginning. Or perhaps he had, but he had never recognized the feeling as _love._ He'd been fascinated by her for no reason. Just foolishly immersed with her strangeness, and that nagging familiarity about her every expression that caused his heartstrings to chime. And really, it could have happened this way with any other woman who had fallen into his path. He'd had so many opportunities to be spellbound by the female species, both vampires and humans alike, over _centuries_. But this Esme somehow murmured the right incantation.

It was Esme who finally cast the spell.

Nothing was special about her at first, except for the fact that he _had to have her. _He just knew it was impossible for him to leave her. Ever.

For all her viciousness in her earlier days, Carlisle thought he could see some of her more charming qualities, sparkling under the surface. All the while, he had somehow known, somehow pieced together that beguiling child from 1911, laying on the sofa with her legs dangling awkwardly over the edge, and her hands folded compliantly over her middle.

And now, she _lived _with him. She was a woman in every way, and that was potently obvious to Carlisle. More by the day.

He sought to lavish her with as many possessions as he could, without making her feel guilty.

He failed. Miserably.

And it somehow struck him as foolish that he would keep going out and buying her these dresses to cover herself with. What if, in this shameful, theoretical, not-often-visited realm of fantasy, he simply refused to stop buying her those dresses? He was fairly convinced that Esme would never ask him for anything if he were to simply stop giving. What would happen then?

Like a man possessed, Carlisle began stealing back things that he had deemed to be herbelongings. Things he thought she might not miss at all. But they held her scent; they held the essence of her touch. He could have at least a little part of herin those torn dresses and empty soap bottles and misplaced paintbrushes. He kept those parts of her hidden, in the second drawer of his office desk in St. Thomas More hospital, where she could never find them.

Carlisle found many thoughts of Esme to be a disgrace to his nature. Every day, it seemed, they became more frequent, more intolerable, more...inappropriate.

He entertained them for a while (and for this "while" he would never forgive himself) before he finally slammed his fist down on the table, scattered and shredded the thoughts with furious hands and burned them in the fire. He could not think of Esme in this way. Dear God, he was abusing her, just by _thinking_. And Carlisle believed this made him just as worthless as that spineless demoniac who had once dared to call her his wife.

The physically impairing illnessCarlisle felt when he thought of the way Esme had been harmed as a human nearly forced impossible tears to form in his eyes. His hands clenched over whatever he happened to be holding, his stomach lurched though it was empty, and his heart flamed with fury. His tongue tasted hell, thinking of how her embrace had been abused by a man she used to call her husband. That same man would stillbe her husband, if not for her fortunate "death."

Death had been her only escape.

It was so mind-boggling to look at Esme and think this. To think this charming, loving, recklessly dependent young woman had _wanted _to die. How desperate she must have been in those last few days. How had she envisioned herself in those times? How often had she fantasized about various craft for suicide?

Carlisle wanted to know these disgracefully personal things about her. Curses, he wanted to lock her in a room with him, take her in his arms, and make her confess every brutality that she had been made to witness in life and in death. But she had told him everything she was willing to tell him. He should have been satisfied with this. He should have been grateful for the minimal trust she had granted him that day in the forest, when they were all alone, with her heart on the ground between them.

She had remembered so much, but still so little_. _It seemed she only knew the better half of everything she had endured. Carlisle believed her every word, and for this he was thankful. But that could never stop the surge of hatred from snaking into his stomach whenever his mind dared to touch the subject.

He still wanted to take Esme into his arms and lock her up somewhere, away from the rest of the world. He wanted to whisk her away to a place where nothing could harm her, somewhere she could hide without that worried quiver in her beautiful lips. He wanted to see the panic in her eyes put to rest for good; he wanted to watch as she receded into a boundless blanket of security, closed her lovely eyes, and breathed the gentle rhythm of slumber.

And he would be tempted to watch over her here forever... if God assigned him to perform such an honorable task.

Carlisle knew such tasks were only assigned to the angels. And he was not an angel, no matter how many delusional patients mistook his identity.

The pain built itself into something of a raging monster. Like an overgrown beast of poison ivy scratching and squeezing at his soul. He could not have Esme. He could do little more than what he had done already to protect her from the world. She didn't want _life_, but it was also quite clear that she did not want _this. _

She accepted his mistake because she felt the obligation, the pressure to do so. She knew her doctor to be a kind man, and in her sympathy, she had taken pity on his well-meaning intentions and promised to _try_.

She reminded him so much of himself.

Esme tried for Carlisle, just as Carlisle was trying for _God. _

It was a tragic chain that would never end. He wanted to break it. Or, better yet, melt it down with this useless fire raging inside of him. He wanted to escape.

Carlisle retreated, as he had done for so many years. Running from vampires, running from humans, secluding himself from everything that only turned him away, hiding his thoughts from Edward.

Edward was so intimidating. Carlisle could never explain why he loved the boy so dearly. Edward saw the world through different lenses than Carlisle. He saw different colors and tasted different scents. He was a fresh, fierce young breed. Rebellious and poised on the edge – always, like a lurking night spirit, waiting to strike. He could hide nothing from Edward, as much as he'd tried to in the beginning. It became plain after not much time at all that this was an impossible feat. Edward could not block the indecencies from his sire as much as the latter could sweep them beneath the rug. And so, Edward saw things, heard things, and felt things. Things he should never see or hear or feel.

Carlisle knew a way to avoid the clash. It was obvious; the answer was simply to run away. But only when Edward was prepared to be alone, prepared for abandonment. They'd rushed time with force in the hopes that the moment would arrive sooner. It was an ironic blessing that Edward was so willing to accept this abandonment. So strange this was to Carlisle – the concept of partnership, constant consolidation with another. He had made the mistake of continually treating Edward as his patient in the early days.

Carlisle never really knew how to treat Edward. In his doubts, he settled to regard him according to the ever familiar Golden Rule. He treated the boy as he wished he had been treated by his own father. Even though Edward hated to hear or speak about fathers, whether they be heavenly or human.

So many questions went unanswered. Out of discomfort, out of awkwardness, out of an admirable disinterest to communicate.

Edward told Carlisle to wait. He'd said the words out loud, only once. But every day he repeated these words, through a simple, sharp glance.

_Wait for her. _

Carlisle had promised himself, and his son. He would wait for Esme.

But waiting was terrible. Waiting was eating away at him slowly, savoring him slowly, each bite at a time. Something had to be done while he was waiting. Something had to be done to cool the fires, to calm the chaos, to soothe the pain.

And then one day, like so many ages before, Carlisle finally found himself alone again, in his familiar garden of desolation.

Oh, how he had missed this...

The roses were abundant in this garden.

He watched them burst in the sunlight every spring, and explode in the summer. Beautiful, delicate – the most feminine of all flowers, he thought. How he loved these roses.

He allowed himself to be embalmed by their fragrance, the sweetness of their captivating scent clinging to his flesh for hours after they touched him. He stripped himself before these flowers, baring himself in this metaphorical Eden. And despite the sculpted perfection of his Adonis-shaming body, he was still bashful beneath their fragrant gaze.

The entire garden would watch him as he made love to an invisible soul. He would have blushed if he could have, as every exquisite blossom around him witnessed the erotic production.

It took courage for Carlisle to love in this way, even being alone. It took courage for this cursed, crystal seed of defilement, this opalescent droplet of dew to kiss the heart of the untouchable rose he only wished he held in his hand. The petals were flush and wilting with desire – but it was a false desire, a fabrication, an illusion. As everything was in this garden.

As illusive as everything else, _she _would appear. For too long he had gone without this uninvited guest. For too long, it had just been him and the faceless, invisible roses.

But now, he shared this garden with Esme_._

Her eyes were gazing over him; her warm caramel hair was spiraling behind her beautiful face like a swimming goddess as she hovered above him. Her velvety voice was hushing him, soothing the battle of sin and angels in his mind. She unwound the sheets he twisted, and stroked back the blond locks that tumbled into his troubled eyes, and breathed her love into his parted lips. His lungs pumped furiously, trying to inhale all of her into his being, but she remained, slender and still, hovering over him. So vigilant and pure, even as his frenzy consumed him.

_"Unlock me..."_

He wanted to respond to her whispered plea. But he never found the right words.

They spilled instead, silently, into the deep chasm of his mind.

_"I'm trying." _

But he knew he was not.

Still, he allowed her to watch him as he waded in the waters. She took his hand and helped him in the smooth journey away from the shore, and he thought he heard her delicate gasp when they were waist-deep.

And then she left him in the water. Too afraid to go on. She could no longer bear to watch him drown himself, but he went on anyway...because it was just too late.

There was a tightening, a tingling, sprawling over his stomach, twisting slowly toward his back, and finally cresting around his heart, as he felt himself being consumed by the splayed petals of an intangible desire. This wretched but beautiful pang was so close to what he felt in times of deepest sadness, but the moment itself was never a sad one. This was the crux, the wake of his passion, the struggling moment of power and vulnerability – the split second where his imaginary lover would have uttered her soft straining cries beneath him, and he would have kissed her with abandon. His love was burning like fire and his soul was swelling; it was fast approaching the brink of physical pain. He whimpered for the Lord in that moment, gasping and weeping as he caressed the invisible petals, in and out, lost to the precious rhythm by his God's design.

There was a burst of vivid, electrical colors – acid lemon, white like dry ice, and shocks of incomprehensible blue like a newborn flame. Sterile mystery in the combustion of space and air, and sizzles of lightning, pulsing into uncontainable reactions that went on and on, drumming against the delicate gates of his loins.

The colors changed, soothed from the shock. Striking and wild became passionate and luxurious – fluorescent white and blue became rich violet and scarlet. The drumming softened into long, languid strokes, slowly coaxing the gates open until everything he held within poured forth at long last.

This release, he believed, could have gone on forever. But something so overwhelming in its perfection could never go on forever. It drove onward for as long as it could, so amazingly strong at its birth, yet it wore this strength down like lead against paper – feverishly writing down the last of its passions before they slipped away, scribbling like mad until…

The halt.

The halt was a sick, degrading, debilitating sensation. No, it was not a sensation. It was rather a _lack _of sensation altogether. An axe chopping down a tree. A sword stabbing a beating heart. A rope clutching the neck. It was a cruel and abrupt end to the ecstasy which should not have had an end.

And despite knowing this moment was among those renewable, Carlisle mourned its loss all the same. Every single time. He nearly cried for it.

His hands were burning as if they had been marked by the devil, and his dead heart was all but convulsing beneath his panting lungs. So slowly, the waters calmed around him, and the flood receded. He felt that he was cold and soaked to the skin of his very soul. And his Esme was nowhere in sight.

His fingers purified themselves by carrying out a ritual so familiar, they completed it viscerally on their own. The tips of those fingers touched his forehead first, then the center of his chest, then one shoulder, and then the other. Then they would repeat the motions until he felt the fever leave his body, an exorcism of earthly pleasure.

And after he had blessed himself profusely and whispered his prayers for forgiveness, he silently pleaded with God to help him find a warmer rose. A rose that would love him back.

Through this cloudy trap of shame and denial, he longed for a deeper blossom, one that would accept all of him, pull him in with a loving grip and not lie limp as he took his pleasure. These roses of the mind's fabrication were unfeeling and dispensable. Always disappearing, never responding. These roses felt no pleasure from his movements, felt no heat from the husky words of affection that tumbled from his lips, blushed no heavier when he spilled the very milk of his misplaced love into their falsely fertile depths. No matter how much he gave of himself, no matter how much he offered, the imaginary rose would never offer herself to _him_.

He was sentenced to forever yearn for the warm rose of a woman. A rose that would endure his love, and not wither away in the wake of his passion. A rose that he could never crush to velvet flakes. A rose that would be only his, and bloom only for him – in every season, and every day of forever.

The pleasure he would feel from such a rose, he knew, would not be an earthly pleasure. It would be an unearthlypleasure. A sensation that might depart and consume in an ocean of years, but it would never, ever abandon him. It would go on infinitely, as it was made to go on. And it would never reach the halt.

So unacceptable was this desire, he nearly struck his own hand when he entertained it.

Carlisle had been struck as a child many times, by his own father, in the wake of any sin. Sometimes he thought he could still see the fragile pink slice in the center of his palm. If he looked close enough, hard enough, long enough, sometimes he was sure it _was _there... and he wanted to hide the invisible gash.

He wanted to hide.

He wanted to hide everything, and he wanted to hide _from _everything. But this want had changed drastically, in a way that disturbed him deeply.

Everything he wanted to hide, he wanted to show to Esme.

Everything meant _everything. _From those invisible gashes in his palms to every inch of bare flesh on his body. He wanted to pull the layers off himself slowly and surely before her; wanted to feel the strain of that self-conscious heat upon his cheeks as she watched him, and he wanted to revel in it.

He wanted to be so open to her that she begged him to go back into hiding. He wanted to spill everything, from his secrets to his seed, and he wanted her to accept everything he could give her until she begged him to give no more.

He wanted to stare so deeply into her eyes, until he saw the human's haunting hazel hidden beneath.

To touch her so tenderly that his fingers made the farm girl's freckled flush resurrect upon her cheeks.

To fill her so abundantly that she wept from the weight of his offering.

The divinity of it all as it played out in his mind was intoxicating. He wanted this so dearly he was pulsing for it. Every fleeting instant he dared to imagine the way she would care for _him_ sent his own fingers flickering over his flesh. How he wished for those fingers to shrink, slenderize, soften. He longed for the flickering fingers to be female... And one in particular, besides whom he could imagine no other.

He wanted no one else. He wanted Esme.

To want anything at all – still, after all these burning, tearing, mocking centuries alone – _still _felt like _sin. _

This want was inescapable. This want _was _sin.

By the unbreakable laws of algebraic equivalence, wanting Esmewas a sin.

Carlisle was trapped where the equal sign rested between both sides of the unbalanced equation. He wanted what he could not have, but this want was unavoidable. In this case, he wanted what he _could _have, and that made it all the more excruciating to refuse. He wished he did not want it, but every fiber of his being rejoiced in this wanting. To lose it, he feared, would be just as devastating as keeping it.

It would never wear away. This was his curse. A curse of solitude and longing. The delicate doves of desire fluttering below his belt.

And the fire in his untouched heart would continue to burn beneath his untouched flesh – a fire which burned brightly enough to blind the one who would be brave enough to quench its flames.

Unless Esme's fire, by some miracle, burned just as brightly as his.


	10. Peacock Blue Ink

**Peacock Blue Ink**

Look what I found in Carlisle's desk drawer: proof that the good doctor is as much a hopeless romantic as Esme is.

Here are a few of Carlisle's crumpled love letters to his beloved, written while she wasn't looking. It is possible that more may appear here in the future, if I happen to dig them out of the clutter.

* * *

_My Dearest Esme, _

_Do you know how deeply I long for you? Do you know how your every step, your every smile, your every gaze tempts me? I am a starving man, Esme. I have starved myself for too long. _

_I am thirsting for your adoration, aching for your touch. Every day, my love for you grows, like restless ivy _— _I cannot kill it. _

_How I wish I could tell you; I wish I had the courage to whisper how deep is my ache. How I wish my tongue were brash enough, bold enough to reveal my desire. _

_I am wandering through a desert, Esme. A desert of desperation. The days are hot and seem to go on forever . . . I finish each with a parched throat and a dry mouth — my heart is chapped; only the balm of your love can soothe it._

_The nights in this desert are so, so cold, my sweet Esme. I am burning with the need to take you here, in these cold, dark hours . . . . I yearn to hear the sands stirred beneath us; the silent sigh of your breath, the fine fruit of your lips against my flesh. How I wish that your warm embrace would be waiting for me when the dawn strokes my face. I wish to share these cold nights with you. Do you wish to share them with me? _

**-}0{-**

_Darling Esme, _

_I have heard the way you say my name. My ear is a blessed one, my love. You cannot hide these inflections; the sweet slip of your desire mars every cursed syllable you dare to utter . . . Or is this only my foolish hope?_

_My father named me, Esme. Did you know this? My name holds meanings of strength and fortress . . . but it is just a name. Did you know that when you murmur my name, this is what you speak of?_

_This irony is so delectable, my darling. You are a dark angel when you whisper my name. My strength is nothing when you say the word, yet you deem me strong by saying it. You address me as "the strong one" yet I am anything but, in the face of your winsome lips. _

_I am no deaf man, nor am I a blind man. Oh, I have seen the way your lips grow tender when they speak to me. I have seen the way your tongue glistens when your lips surrender in awe. Must you continue to mercilessly taunt me in this way, Esme? How long do you believe my control will last, my dear angel? _

_One of these days you will say my name, and I will shatter. _

******-}0{-**

_My Beautiful Esme,_

_Have you ever been told the meaning of your name? When your mother first looked upon you, as an infant in her arms, did she know she had deemed you her Beloved?_

_What an appropriate name it is, Esme, for you are indeed loved. You do not know that I love you, yet I confess this every time my lips murmur your name. Esme . . . Esme . . . Esme . . . _

_I am calling you my Beloved._

_A man can only bear the weight of so much irony, Esme. Spare me, I beg of you, for I am soaked in irony these days. I can barely breathe . . ._

_I grow tired of other words, but never this one. No, your name is one word my tongue will always long to taste. Over and over and over._

_I have called it from the top of my lungs. I have mumbled it, like a sorry somnambulist while wandering the halls of the hospital. I have even whispered it before your very ears. But my fantasies taunt me with ever more ways to say it . . ._

_I want to sigh your name against your very lips. I want to breathe it in and out, slowly between the sheets beside you. I want to feel it blossom from my mouth, warm and heavy, as I join myself to you._

_Do you not think it beautifully tragic, my Beloved? How two exquisite syllables have destroyed me?_

******-}0{-**

_Dear Esme,_

_I am a man in hiding. I have hidden so much of myself from the world around me, yet I long to share what I have hidden for centuries with another. All this time I have been searching for someone _— _in whose heart I can lay my fullest and most honest trust. I have pined for someone to whom I can safely surrender my soul. _

_Every so often I will blink back a tear of indifference and find your eyes shining in my way. I have seen your tender smile in so many ways; I have long since memorized the way every variation of light plays with the soft angles of your lips . . . . I see this smile upon your face, blooming along the tempting beauty of your delicate jaw; I see it, and I am helpless but to trust you with my darkest secrets. _

_My darling, I grow weary of wondering . . . . I am burning but with one question, and one question only: Would you accept me if I were to offer you everything of myself? Would you turn me away gently, deeming me burdensome? Or would you open your arms for me in a sumptuous embrace of mercy, holding me close though I suffocate your joy with the weight of my woes? _

_There is but one way for me to know, my love. Hold me. You must hold me._

******-}0{-**

_Sweet, precious Esme, _

_Do you know how I have watched you in the forest? Do you know how your every move draws me to you, like a terrible king to his court dancer? You are dancing before me, my love. Please spare me this dance, for I cannot stand one more moment of it. You are cruel, my dear. So cruel for making me ache in this way, yet I long to be nearer to you. I long to see every secret pasted in your eyes. I long to hear every need, crisp upon your breath. I am a terrible king for wanting this, Esme. _

_Do you know just how I savor this show? Do you feel the forceful caress of my eyes upon you as you feed on your prey? Do you sense my interests? Do you know that my poor stomach is tighter than an anchor's knot; that my chest is more strained than an archer's bow? Do you know that my hands are trembling as the blood drips down your lips; that my throat is clenching as the purrs flee from your depths?_

_I feel the stamina for sin building low in my belly; I relish this feeling, and I am wretched for it. _

_I must retreat when I see you in this way, my love, or I will do something egregious. I hope that you, in your tender mercy, will forgive me for my retreat._

******-}0{-**

_Dear Esme,_

_I am envious of everything that you touch. _

_Would you taunt me with sweet, frivolous laughter if I were to tell you this? Would you break my heart by looking upon me as though I were mad? Would you even believe me, my darling? _

_To watch your lovely fingers stroke the dust from the window sill is torturous, if I allow it to be; I wish it was my skin they stroked . . . . You brush back the curtains with a sweep of your hand, and I wish it was through my hair where your palm so nimbly swept. You fold your hands together upon your lap, linking them by the fingers, so wonderfully tight . . . But you are only holding your own hand, my sweet Esme. Do you not wish to hold mine so tightly? _

_I have been denied the precious blessing of touch for so long, my love. So few long to touch me. So many have cast me aside, as my own father did. Oh, what hope is there for me, when the very man who brought me life refused to share with me this simplest of affections?_

_Am I not worthy of touch, Esme? Why does it seem that so many fear being close to me? Why must I wander about like a destitute derelict, starving for the slightest pressure of that touch? _

_I fear I will die of starvation if I do not receive it . . . Yet I ask for the touch from _you _alone, Esme. I am desperate for _any, _but I have refused all but yours. I ask for the bread when I can live off the wheat. I ask for the fruit when I may have the flower. _

_You have granted me your touch before, Esme _—_ and this kindness I can never repay, nor express in words how much it means to me _—_ but I am gluttonous for wanting more. My heart is an insatiable monster; my desire is twisted and uncontainable. Lay one finger upon my flesh, my darling, and you will hear my soul whimper with joy. _

_Touch me, Esme. I beg of you. Touch me._

******-}0{-**

_My most cherished Esme, _

_Do you know how your touch has healed me? Do you know the strength of a single slender finger? Do you know that I can feel your care coursing through me by just one touch?_

_I love you for this, Esme. I love that one brush of your skin is all it takes for my heart to mend itself. I love that your voice has the power to put my worries to slumber. I love how your eyes are like stars when my world is like night._

_Can you not see how much I need you, now, Esme? Can you not see that I would never survive without you, knowing such beauty exists in my world? _

_My heart is twisted in its yearning for you. I wish you would allow me to lay bare before you . . . I wish that your curious gaze would sweep over me in a furious caress _— _only you, my passionate Esme, could find art in my body. I wish to feel your impressionistic fingers dancing feverishly over my flesh . . . I wish that you would paint me with your passions… _

_I wish to show you just what you have done to me… But I fear that you will flee in revulsion, in terror. _

_I fear that my love will overwhelm you._

******-}0{-**

_My Esme, _

_I am reeling with pleasure when I call you mine. Do you know this? Do you believe yourself to belong to me, as I wish you would? Do you ever wonder that the invasion of my venom into your throat has given you a second chance? Does this thought ignite a fire inside of you as it does to me? _

_Is it not so painfully plain that we might belong together? Is it so inconceivable that we are two imperfect halves of a perfect whole? _

_Is the desire to experience this union an obsession for you as it is for me? Do you ever dream of it when you are alone, as I do? Does the notion of oneness feel like a brick in the pit of your soul? Does the sound of a stolen breath make you think of indecencies? Does even the slightest suggestion of sensuality nearly bring you to tears? _

_For me, it does. Oh, Esme. I am weeping inside. _

******-}0{-**

_Esme, _

_I can see your passion _—_ I see it as much in your eyes as in your art; in the way you touch things with such terrifying tenderness . . . _

_Oh, my darling . . . You keep this passion locked inside of you. You are afraid of it. You run from it. You whimper and fight against it. You struggle as it seeks the strength to overcome you. You plead with it to leave you in peace, but it never listens. Passion is untamable. _

_My poor Esme, I empathize with you, for I too share this struggle. Yes, our passions are one in the same. Though I do not dare draw assumptions for the nature of yours, I can see that it pursues you against your will. I can see that you are holding back . . . And I cannot help but wonder why. _

_What do you have to fear, my sweet Esme? You have so little in which to find shame. You are dangerously near to perfection, yet you hide from the world. You hide from _me. _What is it that you will not let me see? What is it you so desperately beat away before it rises to the surface? What is this mystery you quietly tuck away when I threaten to unveil it?_

_I want to know, Esme. I want to know your passion._

******-}0{-**

_Dearest Esme, _

_There is a fire in my heart. I cannot recall if I have revealed to you this secret of yet, but I believe it merits repetition for your unaware ears. _

_This fire is raging, always, in your presence. There was a time when it cooled in your absence, but those days are long gone. I fear when you come too close to me, my darling. I fear that you will feel the heat of the blaze on your innocent flesh. I fear my flames will defile you as they have me._

_I am plagued by the burn of this _— _scorching orgy of flames in my chest. Oh, I cannot bear it, yet God forces it upon me . . . He believes it will make me stronger _—_ and perhaps it will _— _but Esme, I do not desire strength. _

_I want to submit myself to this fire, but only if I may submit myself with you. The suggestion of your protective embrace makes me shudder. I would burn happily if you burned at my side. _

_So I must ask the question, Esme _—_ and forgive my boldness in asking _—_ Do you have a fire in your heart? Does your fire burn as brightly as mine? Does this seductive tickle of flames corrupt your heart as it does mine? Do you ever wonder what might happen if we let the flames of our fires touch . . . ? _

_I have wondered this many times, Esme. I have pondered it for endless hours, for countless nights _—_ and every time I imagine this blinding emulsion, this hot mingling of passions, I must quench myself with sin. _

_If I had you, I could sate my thirst without sin. If I had you, I could purify the lust in my throat, with God's consent. If I had you, my fire would strengthen ten-fold, but I would fear it no longer, for I would know it could never hope to consume me again. _

_Esme, only you have the power to calm the flames. I have no control over my fire, for it will only obey the wishes of _your_ gentle hand . . ._

******-}0{-**

_Dearest Esme, _

_I have discovered a garden in my dreams. It is a beautiful garden, filled with life and light _—_ It is an Eden, my dear Esme. I have seen you in this garden; I have called to you, but you have not answered._

_The roses in this garden bring me no satisfaction. They never have . . . They can not make me feel complete with their wilting petals or their fragile flush or their listless fragrance. No, only you, dear Esme, can complete me. _

_God has given you a rose, Esme. Only one man, by your choice and your choice alone, will have the honor of tending to it. Only one man will watch it bloom; only one man may touch the petals. Only one man may bring it life. _

_I am asking you, from the depths of my heart, from the ache of my knees upon the ground; Let me be the keeper of your rose, Esme. Let me bring your rose to life. I promise that my love will never let it die._

******-}0{-**

_Dearest Esme, _

_My cherished one, my angel._

_I have unveiled a world in my dreams. God has granted me a glorious vision of this world; He has shown me the wonders within it _—_ in pieces, in fragments. He has been infinitely kind to give me such a generous view of so wondrous a place _—_ my eyes burn as they look upon it, Esme. Yet I am so curious. So frustrated. My heart fears that I will never find entry to this world, my love._

_God has given me a key, Esme. You have asked me to unlock you. You have pleaded with me, but I have not made the promise. Tell me, am I a fool for believing I see these things in your gaze? Your eyes are swimming with my sunset _—_ your tears are born from the very glaze of my venom . . . Do you know this, my love? A part of me resides in you, already . . . Yet, I long for more of me to reside in you . . ._

_I need your permission, your hand, your love to open the gates to this world. I must have you before I may have the pleasures this world has to offer me. _

_Oh, but I am not a selfish man, Esme. Everything in this world is for you as much as it is for me. I would give you so very much, my angel. I would love you until I have no love left to give, Esme. I would bring you to this brink of ecstasy, as many times as you asked me . . . And I would fall with you. Together we would plummet into the very depths of our passions. The waterfalls of this pleasure would beat down upon us, and we would drown together. We would need no air, my sweet. We would need nothing but us. _

_Surrender to me, Esme. Let me unlock you; let me enter this world. Let me drown in you._

* * *

**A/N: **These were all written in one straight sitting, from 3:30 am until dawn, on my laptop, in my bed.

My apologies if they come off as eccentric, because I was most likely half asleep when they tumbled off my fingertips. I'm too tired to pick a favorite; if you'd be so kind as to pick one for me…


	11. If Only

**If Only**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 29: How Lovely the Scarlet Path." from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

He listened to the sounds of her painting. The swift strokes of the bristles, back and forth. The sensual slide of the oils awakened his heart as he imagined the colors she might have chosen, slipping together in beautiful bursts of yellow and red and emerald green.

It was almost erotic – the way Esme had such control over the canvas, the way she commanded those colors with every motion of her fingers, the way her eyes glittered with the reflections of what she had produced.

Carlisle saw the world as she saw it through her paintings. Painting, by God, was the most beautiful practice Carlisle had ever witnessed.

There was, he thought, something spiritual about it. Carlisle was often able to find a spiritual side to anything, but art was somehow more poignant. He understood how men could make it their religion; how the soul could accidentally slip out of its shell and fall with a splash onto the soupy paints one swirled into images that fed his imagination.

He wanted to join Esme again, before that empty canvas, and he wanted to paint with her. He wanted to take the brush from her hand when her fingers grew tired and finish what she had started. He wanted to dip the bristles into his heart and show her just how bright these colors he kept deep inside were.

And if she was willing, _she _would open her heart and let him look at the colors she hid.

Something told Carlisle that Esme's colors would complement his.

_Oh, the art they could make together._

These thoughts had consumed him night after night. And during those nights, they fed off his reason, growing higher and wider as thick, monstrous vines and leaves do in the summer, like foliage clotting his mind. Somewhere along his narrow path, Carlisle had stumbled. He had given into this foreign power and he had become its loyal subject.

It was almost easier when she was in the room withhim. He could see that she was a person, and not just a woman. He could see that she was _his Esme_, and he could witness all the countless things he loved about her. The care in her eyes and the warmth in her smile, her wild imagination smarting behind her gaze, and her creativity flowing freely off her lips… and the unconditional gratitude and understanding and tentative hope in all that she did.

But when she was not right in front of him_, _Carlisle sometimes thought… a little differently.

His fingers were tapping on his desk. For an hour now, his hand had been disgracefully idle. There was work to be done – always, there was work to be done. There were prescriptions to be filled, and patients to check up on, and documents to order. His mind was loaded with insufferable technicalities, and what-ifs peppering about like crushed berries, and all breeds of medical nonsense. But above it all, hovering like a fine swan, was Esme painting upstairs.

He listened as she rushed through the hall and into her room, the metallic cadmium scent of paint pigments following her trail.

She turned on the faucet.

_Curses. _

She couldn't have possibly needed to bathe. Esme was a disastrously neat painter. For her to run a bath for just the scent of turpentine alone was preposterous.

It was almost as if she were _trying _to torture him.

The swift _slip-swish _of clothes falling to the ground made his throat clench and his hands grip the sides of the desk. The dollop of her toes touching the water made him gasp. He wondered if she heard it.

It was utterly disgraceful, the tension between them across this household. She made one move – just _one _move – and it struck him like a dart, no matter how far apart they were.

He was tied to the wall, with his chest open, and his heart a fat target. Esme had perfect aim.

For some reason – Carlisle hadn't any idea why – he found his fingers blissfully working the buttons of his collar free. He was looking for something, digging beneath the stuffy wool of his sweater vest to find it…

With a sigh of relief, he found what he was looking for.

Rubbing the golden cross between his fingers, Carlisle struggled to find that tiny crevice of peace deep within. He used to be so familiar with this place, before Esme had begun... affecting him in this way.

That peace practically found _him_, once upon a time. Now he had to go searching for it, tossing and turning in a murky ocean with no sails to fly.

It was too deep beneath the water.

He let go of the cross, and his hand drifted slowly into his lap.

The water was too deep.

_"Please, Esme..." _The words were there in his mind, and they might have been on his lips as well. _"Please."_

He could plead with her all he wanted, but she would never hear him. And if she did, she would never know just why he pleaded. And well she shouldn't. She would think his only reason for changing her was to placate this wild fire in his heart.

Oh, but that had not been his reason! Why did God refuse to spare him these raging passions? Her change was an accident, an innocent accident caused only by his pity for her. He had wanted to care for her, to offer her another chance at what she thought she could not have. She thought she had failed, but he thought that maybe, with his help, she would succeed.

And now he was ruining everything.

_I am a victim to the woman's hold, God. Help me. Guide me. Lead me into your Gladsome Light and away from this fire of impurity. _

Carlisle found the courage to plead with God instead of Esme, and slowly, his fingers rose from his belt to his heart.

His breaths calmed and his eyes rested, and it was all the dust of nightmares.

Somehow he had found that sense of peace again. It was bright and still and quiet here. Content, but empty. It was as nice a place as he'd remembered it being. It was just getting harder to find.

The sounds of Esme dressing were so distant now. The pounding of footsteps up the stairs was so distant. The _scent_ was so distant...

Then—

_"Carlisle." _

His name was spoken by his son, and he was there. The door to the master bedroom might have been a pile of splinters. He didn't care.

He urgently knocked his son's narrow shoulder and demanded, "How many? _Edward, how many_?"

But Edward's strain was too great to overcome. He knew he shouldn't breathe, and if he didn't breathe he couldn't speak.

Esme shouldn't breathe either.

Just as she opened her lungs to the scent, Carlisle's hand shot forward and smothered her nose and mouth. She whimpered against him, and he tried not to think of how soft her lips felt on the inside of his palm. He tried not to think of how she was still wet from her bath, how the drenched glossy curls of her hair clung to his arm as he restrained her.

He tried not to think of so many things that all he'd left himself to think of was the rising scent of blood in the air.

"Dear Lord."

This scent brought out the very worst in him.

He had to stay strong.

Edward rammed against the windows, his hands over his ears. "I can't stand it!"

The sight of his son in such distress left Carlisle more shaken than ever.

But strength, control... He needed to stay strong.

A delicious rush of instinct possessed him in that moment. Clasping his son's shirt in one hand and twisting Esme around with the other, Carlisle managed to rip the door off its hinges in a desperate escape.

The thrilling orchestra of shattering glass and Esme's fitful panting spurred his legs to carry him faster, over the railing and onto the ground. Edward was gone in a blur, and the trees swallowed them whole.

Away. They had to get away. As far away as possible.

"Don't breathe. Don't breathe. Don't breathe," Carlisle repeated the words like a terrified prayer against Esme's little ear, his own lungs throbbing with the clutches of the blood stained breeze that chased them.

But with every rapid step, he moved further away from it. This rush of their escape was so invigorating, it made him feel so strong. His veins were singing with venom that flowed like Esme's oil paints. It was like reliving the night he had saved her all over again.

Only now, he was the one who truly needed saving.

Esme kicked at him and clawed at him. She battered his every muscle, and scratched every inch of bare skin she could reach. Her knife-like teeth poked defensively at his throat, so close to those delicate lines of his scars, so close to swallowing that gold cross whole...

She shrieked obscene words and suggested terrible things, and she did not even realize it. It _killed _Carlisle to see her this way. His Esme, torn from the soul out, with her eyes blazing, blank and black. Her beautiful sunset eyes, darkened to a lost night.

Her voice was seductive and furious. Her fingers were everywhere, prodding him, plucking at him, spearing him with their heat until he felt the muscles in his arms unwinding, giving in to her wishes.

Carlisle almost forgot to ask for divine aid. He almost forgot that there was a higher power who could control them both.

Esme was just so strong. She was struggling, and God help him, he wanted to kiss the sense back into her, even like this. Even with her crazed eyes, and her terrible mouth. Because he could see the desperate woman beneath it all, trying to break free.

Damn it, he would break through to her.

He spoke to her unceasingly while he ran. It did not matter what he said, as long as he said _something. _And his words were as much for himself as they were for her.

"Sweet Esme... Please, come back to me. You cannot do this to me... Oh, God, Esme... You must find yourself. Remember who you are... Oh, I am still here with you. I won't leave you, Esme."

His arms held so tightly to her body he worried she would snap from the force of his hold. She was so small and light, yet so powerful in her struggle. Carlisle's heart shattered at the thought that she wanted to break away from _him. _But deep down he knew this was just the blood-lust, this was just the curse of her vampire instinct – a curse he had granted to her. She would hate him forever if he let her go, and though it pained him to do it, he had to restrain her even harder to keep her from going back there...

"Hold on, dear Esme. We're nearly away. We're almost there. Don't leave me, Bright Eyes. I have you… Oh, I have you."

And then her tortured cries shuddered away; her flailing limbs fell limp as he carried her, and she began to sob. Her short spurts of breath tickled against the fresh marks she had left in his neck, and the fleeting spots of warmth they left behind were sufficient enough an apology for Carlisle.

How could he tell her she was all too forgiven? Would she even let him speak to her after what had happened? He held her close as he walked through the forest, needing no direction to follow. His heart was his compass, and Esme was the Polar star. Down she went, into the leaves, and she curled up into a hopeless tangle of lovely pale arms and bare legs.

A single raindrop chastised him with a conscious poke to his shoulder.

He tried not to notice the bareness of her legs.

His gaze focused instead on her eyes, hoping he could make her see that nothing had changed because of this. He did not see her any differently now than he had several minutes ago...but somehow he doubted she would believe that.

She looked down and away from him, as if her eyes could not stand the weight his imposed on her. A hopeless whimper churned in her throat as she pulled her arms and legs in, anxious that she might take up more space than necessary. As if she were a burden to the space surrounding her.

"Will I never have control?" She raised her eyes in fear of his answer, but he could answer in no other way.

"You will if you have faith."

She sobbed again, and Carlisle wanted to reach between his ribs and offer her his heart.

"Faith, Carlisle?" Her lips shivered through his name, and she must not have seen that he shivered as well. "Faith in what?" She sounded so lost.

_God. The existence of your soul. Hope in the promised good to come. _

But he could not speak of these things. Not now. Not when there was something she still had to overcome before she could conquer anything else.

"Yourself," he replied.

She knew it before he had said it. "I don't understand..." Her little hands rummaged through the caramel curls about her head in frustration. "What am I doing _wrong?_"

"Nothing." _Oh, you are perfect, my sweet angel. Nothing about you could ever be anything but right. _"You have done no wrong thus far, Esme." His voice surprised him with its strength, and he was glad to have her eyes so sharp and receptive as he spoke. His words needed to be heard. "This is how you must cope. Resistance will not always be within your immediate control. You have..."

He stopped, his tongue retreating from the word.

_Me. _

Would she accept this as a reason to keep on this path? Was it possible that Esme, in all her doubts and confusion and flooding emotions, could find in _him _the answer to everything? Could he be her burning inspiration? Could he restore her faith?

The idea was so frightfully appealing, so intoxicating. Like he could wield the very powers of heaven all for her. Oh, but this was such an arrogant thought!

Carlisle would be damned before he played God, but here he was, wishing for that kind of power. Just to have Esme for himself would be enough. To have her staring at up at him this way, like he was the sun and she was the flower. It was dangerously addicting, but it was not inconceivable.

He could be her salvation, and she could be his.

_"You _did it," she murmured with eyes full of awe. "How?" she demanded. "You had _no one."_

Oh, but he had One. Since the beginning he had One. And this was the One he wanted so desperately for his Esme to have as well.

"That isn't true," Carlisle whispered in defense. He looked away from her beautiful face, wishing she could see just how untrue it was. But there was no way to rush this kind of enlightenment. He had to be patient with her. She was still so...

"I... I'm so... _so lost."_

She slammed her hand against the tree, shedding bits of bark around her in a storm of little wooden splinters.

_No, not lost. Not my Esme. Never lost._

Just to show how lost she wasn't, Carlisle moved closer to her, and folded her trembling hand into his own. She was cold, and the heat he offered her pulled a sigh from her lips and yanked a delectable burst of male energy from the very core of his body.

"You are not lost," he whispered fiercely above her. "I'm here, Esme."

Her eyes fluttered open, and a brilliant sunrise escaped.

"You're here, and I'm here," he said the words slowly, and even smiled a little because her eyes just had that affect on him, "and we're going to be fine."

He held her tighter, and her trembling calmed. The trouble in her eyes simmered away in tiny ripples.

"Edward," she remembered in a weak voice.

"He's gone further north," said Carlisle. "He'll find us on his way back."

Oh, if only this were certain.

The hope in Esme's eyes was a sword in his gut.

Her face was like heaven in all its wild white glory. She was perfect, from her plush, quivering lips to her wide, glistening eyes. Why would God ever mold such a marvelous creature? What sick, holy vendetta did the Good Lord have against an innocent doctor?

Esme was perfect, not only for her beauty, but for her concern, her love, her deep protection over Edward when he was missing.

"You worry for him so much, Esme," Carlisle marveled, at the expense of her velvet chin in his hand.

"So do you." Her soft words made his heart ache. How true they were. How plain was the truth in his eyes in that moment?

His head bowed low, and his hand fell away.

There were so many unpredictabilities with Edward, but Carlisle could not think of these now.

Not with Esme here, in that scant piece of silk as thin as a flower petal, wrapped languidly around her lithe body. Every which way, circles and diamonds and triangles of creamy white skin peeked out at him, begging for just a touch, just a swift stroke of one finger. But he knew he would never be able to stop at just _one. _

He found it ironic that if she were still his patient, he could touch her and have the excuse of propriety on his side. But now it would be unthinkable to reach out and graze his thumb freely over her flesh.

The rain was teasing him now, falling drop by drop in a crystalline song. On him. On _her. _

Esme. Covered in silk and raindrops. On the ground. Inches away from him.

She pulled up suddenly, murmuring something about the clouds and how they should move along to avoid the rain.

Avoid the rain? Why on earth would they want to _avoid_ this spectacular blessing of water from the sky?

"We'll be safest here," he muttered the first sensible reason that spilled into his mind as he tugged her firmly back. "The air is clear here, and the rain will help it stay that way." His eyes sparked significantly. "We don't know what's out there, Esme."

"But Edward..."

Her eagerness to reach Edward touched him, but he could not let her leave his sight.

"He'll come to us," Carlisle assured hastily, and again he pulled on her hand. "Please... I don't want us to lose each other."

She must have seen the pleading in his eyes, or heard the desperation in his voice. Wordlessly, she settled back against the tree beside him, a bit closer than she was before she stood up. As if to celebrate her acquiescence, the rain fell down in gloriously heavy sheets, soaking everything from the ground to their clothes.

These clothes... They felt so...hindering. His pants were pasted to his hips and his shirt was stuck to his back and his collar was choking him. To just strip himself bare sounded so wonderfully appealing right then, and not only because his clothing felt uncomfortable.

Carlisle vented his frustration onto his necktie, plucking it from his collar and tossing it aside. He was aware that Esme was watching him as he did it – her eyes were scorching little holes in his control, and the rain was trying to cool him, trying to fill those holes.

She sighed and tugged on his hand. Immediately, his free hand covered hers between them, and he dared to move closer, every particle of air moving indulgently out of his way in warm welcome.

Copious streams of heat filled his cheeks and crept along the back of his neck as Esme's robe wilted around her chest in the rain. Every fiber of Carlisle's conscience was scolding him for staring, but his gaze was hungry. His eyes stubbornly sucked in every detail of her soaked body, the way the silk seemed to sink into her, tighter and tighter, closer and closer. He was afraid that the fine fabric would simply melt like milk, slide off her body and leave her bare. Already, the separate swell of each breast was boasting beautiful contours beneath the silk.

The raindrops wept down her chest, sliding beneath her robe. How he wished to be one of those pitiful droplets of rainwater! Some were anxious to feel her flesh beneath, and they fell rapidly, in a race with the ones around them. Some were slow in their path, savoring the slippery slope into the soft heaven that awaited them.

Oh, he was so jealous of those droplets.

If not for the fierce hold both his hands had on hers, Carlisle feared he would have reached across and blindly snatched the silk from her body.

He had to save himself.

He had to rescue Esme's precious modesty…from himself.

Nearly sobbing from the loss of contact, Carlisle pried his hands away from Esme's and quickly began to undo the buttons of his vest. Each of those buttons was a frustrating challenge for his quivering fingers. He felt her eyes watch _every one_ as they slipped through the slits. She was rapt.

His venom was racing in excitement, with the false anticipation that any removal of clothing would end remarkably. But there he stopped, at the very last button, and peeled the drenched blue wool away from his chest to offer it to the woman who needed it more.

She accepted, her fingers grateful and quick.

"Thank you."

_Oh, do not thank me for this._

To think she had once thanked him for taking an article of clothing _away_… How tragic that they had moved backwards from that moment.

Carlisle nodded once and tore his eyes away, the pain of Esme's innocent voice echoing heavily in his chest.

For a few strained moments, he poised himself to fight his wavering control. It was a hefty war indeed. Esme was well-armed with many a weapon: the sounds she made as she absently fingered the buttons, the low, throaty thrum of her breath, the clouds of her ferociously feminine fragrance licking him softly from all around.

Her scent was like exotic fruit – a poisonous delicacy that would kill him were he to consume it.

It was not worth the price to taste.

Whatever had happened to her venom to enhance her sweetness was slowly killing him. There was a sudden burst of her ripened flavor, and the scent was so strange as he drank it in. It sent tiny, nimble threads of need coiling between the base of his spine and his belly. The reaction frightened him just as fiercely as it pleased him, but he had no way to obey what his body was begging him to do.

Because what his body was begging him to do right then was unthinkable.

His hand raised to cover his nose, to block out the toxins that set fire to his lust. What mutiny had caused such a swell in the battle smoke?

Was it really just _her_? Or was there still the scarlet danger upon the air?

Finding no sense in keeping still with this madness wringing inside him, Carlisle lifted himself restlessly from the ground. Without a thought, he scooped Esme up with him.

"The scent of blood lingers," he said, hoping to mask the panic in his voice, "I can't tell if it's human or not. It's still very far away, but we should move on."

"The scent of... blood..." she repeated, almost wistfully. The aroma was far enough that it would only make her slightly dizzy, but it was enough to quicken his pace.

He had to keep her lucid.

He had to stop breathing.

She had to stop emitting those treacherous perfumes.

"I should have known better than to stop so soon," he rambled a little angrily to himself, frustrated by the denial of unsoiled air. His poor lungs were dying a slow death, and so was his throat. "We need to find _something _to feed on out here…"

It was a noble assignment to find fair blood in this part of the forest, but Carlisle was devoted to keeping Esme as content as possible. This situation was already a grand disaster – he could not bear to make it worse.

But holding Esme was quite distracting.

Good God, her fingers were dangling around his neck, touching his hair, almost experimentally. Her legs would rub together every so often, nudging the inside of his elbow with the smooth underside of her knee as she did so. Her every motion sent fresh chills of longing shooting through him, and her hands kept turning up in places he wished they wouldn't, and her eyes were still staring dependently up at him, and Blessed be the name of the Lord.

"Edward is close by," she alerted him eagerly, breaking gently into his tumbling thoughts.

It was true; Edward's scent was rich in the air, but not potent enough to ensure the possibility that he was still close by.

He could be anywhere from fifty yards to fifty miles away...

There was still a nagging fear in the back of Carlisle's mind that Edward might be farther than they both thought. But he wouldn't dare tell Esme. It would destroy her. Worst of all, it would send her beautiful eyes crumbling from sunset to midnight.

"I told you we would find him." Carlisle gazed down at the woman in his arms, hoping she could see in his eyes just how blessed he was to bear her weight with his every step, just how elated he was that she was here with him.

He smiled, the reaction helpless but so weak. It was a false hope that flooded his chest, and Esme didn't even know. Her eyes were churning with the destructive, innocent colors of longing and wonder.

Her breath caressed his lips, and the warm touch awakened his senses with stunning brutality. He hadn't realized how close they were.

His feet slowed from a run to a walk, then from a walk to a standstill. It must have happened quickly because he never remembered slowing down at all.

It was quiet. She was clinging.

"I suppose I can...put you down, now..." his words felt like raindrops themselves, slippery and a little clumsy but somehow beautiful.

They trickled down his chin and fell onto hers.

_Just a moment more. Don't let go of her, you fool. Not yet. Just keep her for one more moment..._

Carlisle foolishly obeyed the whispered wishes of his heart. He didn't move.

Esme lay there in his arms, and she seemed so content, so at peace in the cradle he provided. A part of him rejoiced that she had not yet struggled to slip away from him, but another part was clanging with warning.

His muscles were coiled so tightly he feared he would be frozen in that position, unable to lower her to the ground if he'd even wished to. But why would he _want _to let her go?

Why lose this delicious nearness? This wet, warm, pressed up against each other proximity?

Little clusters of hot and cold settled into his stomach, and Carlisle felt that everything he could _give _to Esme was stirring down there, taunting him, boiling to be set free.

She reached up, boldly with one hand to clutch his collar, as if preparing herself for the inevitable moment his arms would give out.

And he gave her the ground.

It was what she wanted, so he gave it to her. As soon as she showed the first hint of a sign.

She gasped softly as he placed her down. Her fingers lingered around his neck as she unwound her arm from around his shoulders, and his body was suddenly wrought with a tingling brush of luscious fatigue.

"We should circle the area to alert Edward to our presence," Carlisle said, feeling the need to speak softly because of their closeness.

Why were they still so close?

Esme did nothing but encourage the hushed conversation. "Will he hear our thoughts?"

"Either that or he'll catch onto our scents. He can't be far." Carlisle gulped down the venom that had been building since he'd first picked up Esme in his arms. His heart all but growled in displeasure as he took one step away from her. "Let's start in this direction."

Something was wrong. She wasn't touching him.

He would not go on without some sort of connection. He would not leave her for an instant. It was as much for his good as for hers.

"Stay close to me," he ordered, his voice faint but rough. The fact that Esme had obeyed him so promptly was explicitly delightful for reasons Carlisle could not dare name.

"Here." He grasped her hand carefully and splayed her fingers against his side. "Don't let go."

The spot her hand now rested happened to be one of the most sensitive he could have possibly chosen. But it was too late, now. There Esme's hand clung, and there it would stay.

Hopefully.

He trusted her to hold him, to stay close.

All this closeness... it was killing him. It was ironic how the most dire of circumstances often brought about these moments of desperation. They were _forced _into this closeness, and neither was completely comfortable with it – this was obvious.

Her fingers fidgeted against the slope of his waist, drifting lower, then tightening, then gripping and pulling slightly, then creeping higher. Each separate digit offered a different suggestion to the flesh beneath, and the tiny muscular reactions he sent back to her were helpless. The fibers of his flesh were flexing with every step, as if to show off for her fingers.

Esme unwittingly showed Carlisle just how many different ways she could hold him. And each one was more delicious than the last. She was making art on that spot of his waist. She was molding the muscle, reigning his reactions, teasing the tension.

Then she had to say it.

"I'm thirsty."

_Oh, so am I, my darling. So am I..._

"We'll hunt properly as soon as we're reunited with Edward. I promise." He sent her a glance meant to seal this promise, and she seemed to sigh her acceptance.

For a while Carlisle continued the path he had set, one step at a time, patient but hasty. They were nearly there.

"Carlisle..."

He responded to his name faster than he would have had it come from God Himself.

His hand shot out to grab her arm. "You need blood now?" he asked her urgently.

She nodded with another unbearable whine, her wet curls trembling.

He almost scooped her up off the ground again.

"Alright, we'll find something," he promised, fastening her arm in his steady grip. "Just hold on. Don't let go of me."

She kept making these helpless little noises while they walked, and no matter how he tried to keep his pace as brisk as possible, he was only able to barely meet her heels with every step. Soon _she _was dragging _him... _and he had no idea where she was taking him.

He tried calling her name. Right in her ear. He tried whispering her name. He tried pulling her back with all his might. But she was already free from her prison.

Carlisle reeled in shock as Esme pounced away from him. She was like a pretty piece of paper, fluttering away on a gust of wind. Even his impeccable reflexes could not seize her from the air.

Somehow, at some point in time, Edward had appeared at his side. Their paths had been bound to cross, but somehow it was a miracle he was here. It was like the boy had never left. He was yelling about something, trying to warn Carlisle what was about to happen. But he already knew.

It was just too late.

Esme's tiny body raged with unfathomable energy as she hurled herself into a single small figure in the heart of the forest. A timely streak of white lightning graced them all with a clear snapshot of her first murder.

The scent of blood was heady and multiplied by the wind as the storm blew debris and thousands of inferior scents against her witnesses. As Edward came upon the scene, crashing into Carlisle, he noticed with terror that even his father's eyes were reduced to coal at the smell.

"Hold her back!" The doctor ordered harshly, seizing Esme's waist with both arms and tearing her thrashing body away from the slaughtered child.

All three of them were growling fiercely – at each other, at the possessive power of the single soul-slicing scent. Esme's newborn strength was disarming, but thankfully not enough to overcome the combined force of two male vampires. Carlisle pounced onto her back and held her to the ground with all his weight as Edward wrenched her wrists in place, face to face with her crazed ruby eyes.

The feral grunting that emitted from Edward's throat finally settled to a low, anxious vibration. He calmed as he heard Esme's growls fade with her prolonged exposure to clear air.

"Stay with me, Esme," Carlisle murmured roughly into her ear from behind, arms locked desperately around her small frame. "Stay with me..." His voice cracked uncharacteristically after another crash of thunder.

But the scent of blood was proving to be difficult for more than just Esme's senses.

"Carlisle..." Edward whined helplessly, fighting every impulse to keep his head from snapping in the direction of the fresh corpse, covered in gushing bite marks.

Immediately, Carlisle's rain-streaked face whipped up from Esme's hair to stare at his son in warning. "Edward, no. Please, Edward. Find yourself. Keep yourself. Son."

_Son. _

"Carlisle."

"Don't think about the blood. Look at me, Edward."

_Son. _

"Father."

The thunder hurt Edward's chest.

Carlisle continued to stare at him through the wind, the water, the blood. "You're going to make it, son."

"Esme..."

Carlisle's head snapped down to stare at the woman on the ground. She had frozen in place, little more than a soaked rag doll stained with blood and earth. Her blank eyes stared past Edward at the dead body behind him, unmoving and glazed over, her pupils alarmingly contracted.

"She's in shock," said the doctor.

"We have to go back."

Carlisle ignored his son's pleas, instead turning Esme over beneath his body, framing her face between his palms and touching his forehead to hers. His voice was exhausted as he tried in vain to bring her back. "Esme... my Esme..."

The blood was dead. It had been cooling from the very first brush of wind. The once sweet scent was now sick, and the body they could see was now even smaller in size. Helpless. Dead.

The appeal was gone.

"Carlisle. Please take her back. Take her away from here." Edward sounded like a child, and he didn't care. He needed to be heard, needed Carlisle to hear him more than anything.

Compassionate golden eyes gazed up through the sheets of rain, understanding written all across his face.

_Help me carry her._

Carlisle lifted the woman into his arms, cradling her so close that her face became a part of his neck, arms limp at her sides. She was not fighting him.

"You don't need my help," Edward reminded calmly. His voice was drowned out by the intense rumbling of the storm, but he knew his father heard him.

Slowly, the boy began to retreat.

"Wait! Edward!" Carlisle called, voice shaking with terror.

"I need to do this, Carlisle," Edward answered, his tone disturbingly calm compared to his father's. "You know it. I can't stay here and watch this any longer. I need to get away."

"No, please..." Edward could see that Carlisle would have been on both his knees if Esme had not been stuffed between his arms. "Son, I beg of you." He sounded like he was crying.

"You know what needs to be done," Edward said darkly. "Neither of our minds will truly be at rest until it's taken care of."

They were not just speaking of Esme now.

Carlisle froze, knowing it was useless to fight with Edward's will. Still, his thoughts crashed through his head, and his love churned in his heart. Some part of Carlisle wanted this just as desperately, because he thought that Esme would have wanted it.

It was so wrong that it had to be the right thing. But it was so right that it must have been wrong.

He could not hold onto his morality without slipping, especially in all of this rain.

Carlisle should have asked his son one last time to leave the fates alone, to come home and move on with this life as if nothing were missing.

But as a father, Carlisle hadn't the strength. With Esme in his arms, he hadn't the strength. With the Word of God upon his heart, he hadn't the strength.

So he let Edward run.


	12. A Taste of the Doctor's Medicine

**A Taste of the Doctor's Medicine**

_A composition of drabbles that reveal what was going on in Carlisle's head while Esme was grieving in "Chapter 31: Untouchables."_

* * *

**_~Brokenness_**

She wouldn't let him touch her.

In all his days since he'd met Esme, Carlisle would have never imagined she would shy away from his touch. It was, perhaps, arrogant of him to be shocked by this, but he would have never had the chance to realize just how much of her open affection he had taken for granted. Now that she was denying both the giving or receiving of affection, he was left cold.

She looked so fragile, so breakable. No, she was already broken.

Her hair fell around her face in streams of burnished maple silk. The once flowing ringlets were wet, clinging to her brow. He longed to swipe them away, and kiss the places they left hidden.

She crawled away, and he followed her, and to anyone else they would look ridiculous here on the floor, drenched from the rain and whimpering with sadness. But no other eyes could see them; no one was watching to judge them.

The floor was rough and cold beneath his hands, and Carlisle savored the dry buff against his palms as they scraped along the carpet. The pain was fine for him, but he wished Esme would not have to endure it as he did. He wanted to turn over her hands and soothe each of her palms with a generous lick of his tongue. This was the only ointment he could think to offer.

Her body, at last weary from its short-lived journey across the carpet, collapsed in a final swoon upon the floor. She lay in stillness, but he could see that she was weeping.

Though his hands ached to seize her in a fierce embrace, his touch was tender as he lifted her from the cold floor. Her body was a limp, damp bundle of limbs as he carried her to her bed and covered her with the blankets.

For a split second, he saw his sixteen-year-old patient.

His touch was too light as he let his fingers stroke her hair. He would have allowed himself to use more strength in touching a butterfly's wing, and yet with Esme he was ever more careful.

She looked so breakable.

One of his fingers strayed from its intended path, ghosting over her temple and onto her cheek. Her skin was like soft frost where he swiped away her false teardrops. He wanted to swipe her sadness away, but his fingers could only do so much.

His voice was like fleece as he begged her to speak to him.

But her eyes were blank as she stared up at him, no longer bejeweled with the stars of creativity and wonder. In place of this, Carlisle saw a scarlet shadow in Esme's eyes, and he longed to shine sunlight into them instead. But how could he do this when he had so little light left to offer? And what light he _had _left, she only refused. She was benign in the face of his beseeching prowess.

He sobbed for her until his voice grew hoarse, until his venom had all but dried up.

"God," he said out loud.

Her eyes flickered.

And the silent voice of his heart finished, _"What have I done?"_

******-}0{-**

**_~Weakness_**

He could feel it – a sluggish gestation, billowing in slow motion inside his stomach. He knew it would soon consume him, but he already decided that he would let it.

He felt the chill of an unforgiving wind rush against his face, knowing he had reached the top of Golgotha. There was nothing left. Helplessness was a slow, tender degradation of the heart. Sometimes the sensation could be dangerously seductive – when one was in the hands of God, for instance, it was a thrilling thing to be helpless. Like being swept of one's feet by a gale with no direction. Like being carried away by a relentless sea with no raft.

Only those with the fiercest faith would not drown.

Carlisle used to think if he only believed enough, he could walk on the water. But even with his faith, he still needed a hand to hold as he stepped from wave to wave.

Watching Esme drown was devastating.

Every night he saw her lying there, like a limp piece of paper, soaking up the moisture, growing heavier and heavier until she was sopping. If he were to take the blue ink of his writing pen to her now, the ink would bleed over her dampened spirit. The words he offered her would be illegible.

Even _he _would not be able to read them.

Why waste words when they would not stain forever?

******-}0{-**

**_~Regrets_**

This one night, he thought a dangerous thought. If he were to suddenly blast through her bedroom door, fall on his knees before her, and let the words fly like wild-winged birds from his lips: _"I love you."_

What would happen? Would the world suddenly heave a sigh of forgiveness and see them bound that very night, leaving behind all the trials which led to it?

He wondered things like this, and it was such a terrible thing for him to wonder.

The door that separated him from Esme was so thin, yet so thick. With one finger, he could sentence it to splinters, yet because she said, _"Leave me," _he had to obey.

But as he retreated into the shadows, his thoughts became even more dangerous.

He could see her, poised on the edge of that cliff – it was a looming black, spiky silhouette in his nightmares. He could see that she was prepared to jump; she was threatening him, tilting her slender neck toward the moon, and she was going to fall.

He could not let her fall.

Oh, if he'd only been there. If, in some alternate dimension, he had been there on that night she decided to jump. He would have raced out of the shadows and gripped her from behind. He would have startled her – she would have gasped and fallen back against him, her body thrumming with renewed hope. He would have held her back with all the strength he had, and all the strength God refused to grant him.

He would have taken her away from that crumbling edge.

Perhaps she would have rebelled, flailing and kicking and refusing. He would have dragged her back against her will.

Perhaps she would have surrendered, submissive and limp. He would have carried her away, cradling her in his arms – gently, slowly, patiently.

Perhaps she would have seen his face and remembered him with a strike, shocked and thrilled that he had found her. He would have lifted her from the ground and pressed his lips to hers, drinking down the last of her hopelessness and filling her with new life.

But no – he had to be her doctor when she was twenty-six_ minus _ten. One empty, miserable decade he'd spent, letting this woman roam the world alone, letting its troubles knock against her delicate body, _allowing _her to suffer.

He should have been there for her.

He should have never left.

******-}0{-**

**_~Frustration_**

The scent of juniper, fresh like winter's frozen kiss stung his soul. The cellar still reeked of her beautiful bouquet – the soft ginger of her hair, the sensuous berry chill of her lips. He felt the presence of her there when he went down those stairs. He remembered her cries, how she had struggled in his arms. He remembered the way he once held her, the way he once _kept _her. He hadn't let her go then. So why had he let her go now?

His mind was teeming with the temptation to initiate an epic confrontation where he would charge through her door and shake her by her shoulders until she spilled the makings of her heart.

But he knew Esme would be frightened by this confrontation. So he imagined a gentler initiation.

Perhaps, instead, he would pick the lock to her bedroom door, and slip through it in the middle of the night. He would intrude upon her heart-wrenching sobs, quietly, gently. Settle himself on the very edge of her mattress and reach out with one hand to touch her, gently enough that he would not startle her.

_"Tell me the story of your soul," _he would whisper. And she would respond with a gaze that said everything, and a crushing kiss that proved her story true.

He was restless with the agony of what it might be like, here in the cellar, here in this stone hell. It was once Esme's prison; now it was a prison for them both.

He dared to imagine what would happen next, how he would discover her soul.

She would ask him to find it. She would plead with him to uncover her soul, and to touch it, to knead it with his gentle hands and restore within it the life it never had.

But he knew that her soul was buried deep within her, in a place she herself could not reach. Only he could reach it, but she had to trust that he was worthy enough, strong enough, ready enough, _in love _enough to receive it.

He imagined her words of permission, how breathless and beautiful they would sound on her tongue – how her lips would fall open in rushing gasps of exaltation as he smothered himself inside of her, beating down the barriers of her imprisoned soul. Her words would gnaw on his control, like a child teething on rubber, until finally his own walls would come crumbling down.

Finally, he would break into that secret place within her, seeking refuge for this brief, beautiful moment. She would grasp his gift, her throat quivering with lost cries of gratitude, and there he would remain for as long as she let him, bathing in the warmth of her soul.

And she would lift her eyes to him in wonder, murmuring, _"You have found it."_

His lungs raced and his palms burned with a valiant ache, just _thinking _of the consequences of this revelation.

The flesh beneath his clothing was incinerated with brief but violent strikes of need. Rush in and retreat. Over and under. It pulled from the heavy center of his hips and soared up his spine. And once it plunged into his heart, he was nothing but a man who yearned to be touched.

But he could not even touch himself.

So he took the nearest breakable part of the room and smashed it against the wall.

Frustration blinded him. It was a strange, pulsing, furious kind of image before his eyes. A smattering of neon nonsense, a scribble of burnt fuchsia, a crack of blazing orange. And there was black beneath it all. Black like an endless hole in the ground, above which he was suspended by a single unraveling thread.

He let himself fall, softly, to the ground.

Then, sobbing, he cleared away the shards of glass, just as he had done on her bedroom floor. Picking up pieces, always. Cleaning up messes, always.

He was always breaking things. But he tried so very hard to fix them.

******-}0{-**

**_~Rage_**

These blinding moments hit him every other second, and he kept thinking, _How could I have let this happen?_

Carlisle could have stopped Edward before he left. He could have done it. He could have begged the boy, with just a little more dignity, and he could have convinced him to stay.

Would this have eased the pain he now felt, trapped alone in this cavernous prison with the woman he both desired and pitied? Would these rooms have accommodated one more restless spirit? Would his rage have been more monstrously enticing than it is now?

Was this what they called the devil's love? Selfish fires of anger and resentment? Petty prices that no man would ever wish to pay?

Why should he pay this price? How rich must a man be before he has the means to pay back his debt? The debt known as anger was infinite and impossible.

Carlisle wanted to brush himself clear of it once and for all, but it was always there, like a stray speck of dust under the rug. Part of this rage would always be trapped beneath him. And when it was not hidden beneath him, it was trapping him_, _and he could not lift the weight from his back.

He knew that Esme, with her gift of newborn strength, could seize this weight and heave it off his aching body. But first he had to tell her how crushed he was. First he had to reveal to her the pain of this weight. First he had to admit that he could no longer bear his cross.

He was a stubborn saint and a selfish soul, for he could not reveal this.

Yet, one day, Carlisle feared, the sword would tip from its balance point. Down it would fall, a direct slice through his restraint. This strike could yield a glorious flood. Perhaps it would even last for forty days.

Esme was a dove. Her heart was an olive branch.

But she had nowhere to land.

Carlisle had been a fool for not building an ark. He would have no safe perch to offer her. He was unprepared for the flood yet to come.

******-}0{-**

**_~Guilt_**

His heart was crumbling in this dungeon of restless demons.

Here, he was alone. Here, he was Satan's son. Here, he was sinking.

How could he have let this happen? How could God have let this happen to _him? _To _her?_ To _them_?

Some part of him is smarting, like a fresh wound, yet what could he have done to prevent it?

He had held her for as long as she allowed him to hold her. He had chased after her when she ran, and he had caught her in time. But she still took her fill.

As he watched her lips crash _once, twice, three times _into the throat of the innocent child, it felt like her teeth were really stabbing his heart.

He still felt it was his fault. Esme was his responsibility, and he had failed her. Somehow, she had this unspeakable connection to him, and everything Carlisle did, whether he knew it or not, orchestrated her every move.

But how was this even possible?

What could he have _done _to make her this way? What more could he _do _to keep the demons at bay?

Carlisle could not fight Esme's instinct anymore than he could fight his own. He had no armor for this battle – instead, he went in with only his skin for protection. He was bared to blindness and stripped to shame.

And every time he looked at Esme, she made him realize what a fool he was for resisting. For pretending. For masquerading as a saint when he was only a man.

Her every fall was his fault.

******-}0{-**

**_~Hope_**

"Be brave, Esme. For Edward." He spoke the words with a tired tongue, their weight almost too much for him to release, but he did. "For…me."

In that moment of stillness, his eyes were filled with forbidden colors. He could not restrain them, but somehow he did not wish to. That loss of restraint, no matter how brief, was intoxicating. As he stared into her eyes, he could see that she was thirsty for it, perhaps as much as he was.

He could have taken her here.

Offer or not, he could have done it, and no one could have cared to stop him but himself.

That was why it never happened.

Instead, Esme teased him with her trepidation. Into his arms, she fell. Against his chest she pressed her weary head.

Never had _anyone_, much less any _woman, _been this close to him. Close enough to embrace him, _willing _to embrace him. The sensation nearly made him sob in exaltation.

This act of embracing... This was divine.

Carlisle felt a little bit like a god, in that moment. So powerful, yet so very vulnerable. Esme was dependent on him, but she was so _blind _to her power over him.

Did she know that every warm strike of her breath against his chest made his heart quiver? Did she realize every tentative squeeze of her fingers on his shoulder made his lungs dissolve? Did she know how _cruel _her closeness was for him, a man blessed with such savage sensitivity?

Her body felt so tender against his, so disarmingly perfect to mold into his own. Her femininity was inescapable, undeniable as her breasts brushed against him, her waist becoming supple beneath his probing fingers.

How virile was the energy that filled him at her intimate touch. From the heel to the head, he was throbbing with the will to protect her, though there was no harm in the room. He savored it nonetheless – this unabashed, brazen, and reckless pulse of pure masculine instinct.

For once, he did feel that he lived up to his name.

Carlisle.

_Yes, father. I am strong. _

Because of this woman, he _was _Carlisle.

"I want him back," Esme whimpered into the very center of his chest, her words muffled against him. "Why did he leave us?"

She was asking these things that were so dangerous to ask. _Why did he leave? Why was Edward gone?_

Carlisle could hear her concern in the lush void of her lovely voice. She thought Edward ran away because of her. But Carlisle could not tell her the truth.

He knew it would destroy him. And Esme would watch him – she would be his gloriously wide-eyed witness as he came tumbling down, like a fortress falling into sand.

The truth could be such a beautiful thing, but here it was a weapon.

Her head tilted back for him, like he was the moon. Like he was the last light she would see before the leap.

He almost told her.

But the truth tasted so bitter.

"We will bring him back," he said instead. It was all he could say.

His hands came up to touch her cheeks. Oh, how spoiled his flesh was to revel in this submissive velvet.

He murmured words of comfort, and told her not to cry. Every word was a pitiful distraction against his baser desires. Every word was only a half-truth, and therefore boasted only half the beauty it could possess.

He was so, so close to her. And she was not afraid to touch him, to share this space and air and time with _him. _

A saint and a sinner.

Both were sharing this embrace.

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ Just so everyone is clear about the significance of the title, Carlisle is finally beginning to see how his being closed-off about his emotions and sins makes others feel distanced from him. When Esme refuses to speak out about her accident and help him understand how she feels, he becomes frustrated. Little does he realize, he is doing the exact same thing to her by not being truthful about either his feelings or the true reason why Edward left. Carlisle let Esme believe that Edward left because of what she had done... but Carlisle knows the real reason Edward left. To reveal this reason to Esme comes at a price that Carlisle is (even selfishly) not yet willing to pay – one that would show her an infinitely less holy side to him which he fears will make her hate him._


	13. The Worst Curse of All

**The Worst Curse of All**

_I don't like writing deaths, but I felt Charles Evenson's death would be one necessary to my story at some point. This would take place during Chapters 30 & 31, while Edward was away. Esme thinks he ran out on her because she killed a human, and Carlisle knows Edward went to kill Charles, but has to hide it from Esme to avoid letting her know that he had a part in the plan. Here is the companion piece that follows Edward as he sets out to kill Charles Evenson._

* * *

Esme's last lucid thought had been of Charles.

Edward heard it, even from his distance. Even when the blood was coiled around the air, he caught the scream of fury in Esme's mind-voice. Her anger was so impressively channeled, so perfect.

It was too much to watch. The way the neck snapped, clear across the child's head. It looked like a doll in her hands. Esme did not look very motherly, with her possessive clutch on the corpse as she drank like an animal from its shuddering veins.

Edward remembered the pain that followed the feast. The deathly drop of pleasure into a putrid garden of guilt.

It wasn't that he wanted to leave Esme. It wasn't even that he wanted to spare himself the pain in having to watch and feel and hear her grieving guilt.

It was that last scream of vengeance he'd heard chiming far louder than the sweet song of the blood.

Esme _wanted _Charles to be dead. Edward wanted Charles to be dead.

Hell, even Carlisle wanted Charles dead.

Edward had no choice in the matter. The deed, he decided then, had to be done.

Carlisle tried to pull him back, tried to force some last sensible speech past his maddened mind. But, oh, he could be of no influence when his will was matched. Carlisle did not want to stop Edward. Not really.

Carlisle _let _Edward go.

It was phenomenal, really, how fast three days could go by while seething with revenge. Edward ran nonstop to reach his destination, his fuel coming from pure anger, his energy pulsing from the silent pits of his heart. He knew when he saw her eyes, fresh with a scarlet blaze. He knew then, that he must have loved Esme. He would do anything to show her just how much.

But his love was so fragile; he hardly knew if this love could be real, thinking it did not feed off of his soul. But he believed this love could be made into something real, if only he did something to show for it. Some noble act that could not be reversed.

This was the most exciting thing he had ever set out to do.

Edward was all but foaming at the mouth when the forest forged into roads, and the roads crammed into towns, and the towns swelled into city.

The research alone to seek the man out took an entire day. Names were more common than Edward realized, especially out here. All of the pages and records and resource papers he leafed through led him to one place.

Chicago.

Ironic that he happened to find the poor soiled soul in the very city he had died in.

Edward wandered the streets as only a restless vampire could. He was invisible to everyone around him, a clever shadow melting fast into the dark.

The foul scents of liquorice and cracker in the stuffy tavern made his stomach churn. The air wore the dust like a cloak, all but invisible to the humans who unknowingly breathed poison into their lungs, each breath shortening their insignificant lives by several seconds.

The faces were all delightfully unfamiliar here, cast like lively corpses beneath musty yellow lamps. They stared at each other with lingering glances, wondering, _'have we met before?'_

Their eyes all looked the same in the eerie greenish glow – two dark drops of suspicion per face, save for the elderly man in the corner who wore a tattered eye-patch across his forehead. His thoughts made the least sense.

The rest of them had similar thoughts; the ones that were little more than white noise to a mind-reader – financial, sexual, morbid, and rarely intellectual. In a place like this, the greed and the ungratefulness were grand overtones to the bland flow that peppered back and forth. From table to table, Edward's thirsty gaze appraised every face individually, finding their blood all the more unappealing when the thoughts that accompanied them were revealed.

Alcohol soiled human blood. One may as well have poured vinegar over chocolate syrup – that was what alcohol did to their blood.

The finest taste was the purest – the younger they were the more appealing their bouquet became. But not too young. The most fertile, it seemed, had the best blood. Pubescent youths were the finest. Alas, there were none so pure to be found in this place. And it was better that they were not present. The temptation would have been too dangerous to deviate from his indented path.

Besides, he had only one target. And one target he would claim.

Rust-colored scruff hid his deep-set lips in a wide, square jaw. His glinting eyes were buried beneath thick, narrowed brows. Every carefully strewn stitch of his clothing and the way he walked with a proud sort of limp told the story of a man once esteemed; now broken.

He was so easy to pick out in a crowd. Though Esme's vague memories of his face had never given much to work from, Edward felt as if he knew the man already. And it was rather like searching for an old friend, with all of the casual questions offered to unsuspecting city dwellers. The innocent people had gaped at him in shock when he requested the location of one Mr. Charles Evenson. _Why would such a handsome young boy be looking for Charles Evenson? Surely he meant a different Mr. Evenson... Surely he is mistaken. _

Had they only known the intentions behind his visit.

Edward grinned sadistically to himself as he cast the bastard a sidelong glance at the bar they now shared. Though the thought of admitting it made him sick, some part of him enjoyed playing the part of a true vampire. It was thrilling to be in his hometown, with no sentimentality to haunt him. Because he was the one who was haunting another.

Evenson tipped his bottle of destitute and swallowed, the veins in his beefy neck beautifully plump to the vampire sitting a few stools away. Edward carefully tamed the venom building beneath his tongue to mumble up a false order to the barmaid who had caught many a man's attention.

Her blazing brown eyes shamelessly stripped the handsome stranger from his head to his foot as she slipped between the swinging doors behind the bar. She offered her hand, palm up, for his pay, and he averted his gaze as her thoughts became offensively lewd. With a distant look of distaste, he dropped three coins into her palm. As she worked behind the taps, her eyes flickered to him repeatedly - in her mind, preferring to have offered herself in place of the drink. There was, of course, a curse to being the youngest man in the tavern, and clearly the closest in age to the woman who served him.

She set the glass of foamy amber liquid in front of his folded hands and allowed her eyes to crawl up his face one last time before she sauntered away, disappearing into clouds of cigar smoke.

Edward casually lifted the glass to his lips, nearly gagging at the swell of the nasty scent beneath his nose. Effortlessly masking his disgust, he swished a mouthful of the stuff before letting it flow back into the glass as he set it down again. A cautious glance to his left alerted him to Evenson's lingering interest – the irony was palpable.

Edward only glared back, allowing his own unreal eyes to disconcert, to disturb.

Voices and thoughts grew louder on the other end of the room. By the tables, several minds suggested the beginning of a brawl. With a wary glimpse behind him, Edward saw the seething face of a large man with a vengeful hatred tearing through his eyes.

At his first swing, the great brute clutched the neck of the one who had cheated him. One dollar less than he would have liked, and the entire corner was in an uproar.

Many folks who had their fill were smart enough to slip away while they could, the young vampire being one of that crowd. Edward hovered by the door while the rest of them scattered through the streets like regular nighttime civilians. He watched as they dematerialized in the dark alleys of Chicago, while the fight inside the bar grew more heated. Despite having a clear grasp on Evenson's scent, a panicked set of soon-to-be scarlet eyes peered inside the tiny window, just in time to see the man in question heading for his escape.

The rust-haired man tumbled out the door, clutching his right eye and grunting in despair.

His limp was no longer classy after a fresh injury and a few glasses worth of disorientation. As he stumbled along the empty street, he took no notice to the dark youth whose vigilance was still a hook in his side.

It was spectacular, for Edward, to play the part of a stalker in the filthy night air. Thrilling to creep completely unheard over rooftops and around narrow corners, knowing his reward would be red and ready when the time was ideal.

It was impressive that a man so close to fainting could manage to find his way back to the dingy apartment he called his home, in the middle of the night with no one to guide him. Clearly he was well-practiced.

He fumbled with the keys for a minute, and it wore on the vampire's patience. When the door was finally opened, Edward slid inside unnoticed, faster than the man's own shadow.

No lights were lit upon his entry, nor were they worth the effort of turning on. The limp gave way at last, and he collapsed into a sofa with his hand still covering the eye that had no doubt seen a life of hell.

He deserved to live the rest of his life with only one eye to see. He deserved to keep on this way, night after night spent in a filthy bar with no end in sight. He deserved life because life, for him, would have been so much worse than a quick and simple death.

But to let this man live was a risk to the rest of the living.

His breathing slowed as he rested on the sofa; occasionally a moan of discreet pain or a twitch of his hand would disrupt the lingering pattern.

Edward was full vampire as he waited in the shadows, poised like a gangly spider on the floorboards. The sounds of the city outside grew dull while the rhythm of his victim's breathing became louder. Pumping and pulling his restless ears, the grand rapids of blood in slippery veins, the fleshy pound of a heart.

Evenson's thoughts were full of pain and agony, a nasty scraping sensation as he tried to move his injured eye in its socket. But as his speech would have been, his thoughts were slurred, and it was difficult to tell whether this was because of the alcohol or the blaring hammer of his heart that masked every other sound in the room. The mad aroma of his blood called forth a river of venom from under Edward's tongue like a snake charmer.

His time was up.

In the next instant, Edward was standing, full height over the man in the couch. It took a few moments for the brute's human-eyes to adjust to the vision before him. And his thoughts were well enough to make it clear he thought he was hallucinating.

"I am no hallucination," the vampire declared.

What the hell...?

"Hell. Indeed, sir." Edward whispered smoothly, the practiced words almost too perfect to bear. "Hell is expecting your arrival tonight."

The confused man grunted a bit in response, thoughts just as mangled as the broken words that trudged up his throat.

Edward leaned down close to Charles Evenson's face, and he took in the rusty beard and the bruised eyes and the clutching stench of illegal absinthe in his breath.

And it was no different in that moment than it would have been on any other hunt in the forest. Edward saw those eyes staring up at him, submissive and pure, wordless and permitting, like a doe between his hands.

Edward had no plan for this night. But the words he said before he took the kill _were _planned. They had been since Esme's first memory of Charles Evenson slipped into Edward's mind.

The vampire's velvet voice was heartbroken and full of mercy as he braced his hands about the man's heavy head. "This is for Esme."

With that, he tore the neck back and sliced the artery in one graceful swoop. The crack of his skull echoed in the silent room as the first drop of blazing blood touched Edward's tongue.

One taste was bliss and one taste was terror.

In that flashing second, his eyes were blinded by the fierce image of his false father. The eyes of Carlisle Cullen peering down at him with infuriating clemency – a crowned saint whose gaze threw rays of sun knifing into the wickedness that could not bear to receive him.

Edward tore his teeth from the throat of his paralyzed victim, the tiny punctures like gaping holes to his eyes. He scrambled away from those gushing scarlet points, and allowed the bewitching fragrance to swallow _him_ instead.

A sickening chill trickled down his jaw, and his muscles froze as he braced himself back against the wall, staring down at the corpse in horror.

He desperately wished to shut his eyes and pretend none of it was there – but in the place of darkness behind closed eyes, there was instead a dazzling light that melted his muscles and dried his bones to dust.

Edward fell to the floorboards in a tormented heap, wanting nothing more than a pair of forgiving arms to take him close and love him despite his crisis of sin. He could not return to that embrace until the fire burned out from his eyes. He had unwittingly cursed himself in his noble crusade.

Even now he knew, as he cried to himself in the shadows, when he had that unconditional love screaming back for him he would not give into it. When that moment came, Edward would don the armor of his stubborn pride and refuse its warm acceptance. He would forever be the cursed one when the cursing was through.

It had taken this one night, this one sip of blood to remember that the worst curse of all was that of loneliness.


	14. An Exploration of the Heart

**An Exploration of the Heart**

_This chapter delves into Carlisle's mind after the heated confrontation in Chapter 34 of Stained Glass Soul. He goes through a profound change here which will prove very important in the development of his relationship with Esme in the future chapters, and in gaining her forgiveness for being dishonest with her. _

_This is a heavily metaphorical piece. I will offer a short explanation at the end for anyone who finds it a bit confusing._

* * *

She left him alone, with the somber song of his sobs, and the rain, and her meaningless word of forgiveness.

"Fine."

One word was all she offered. It was just a wisp of a word, hardly a sound. She could not bear to speak to him.

Her eyes were withdrawn, baring their fear, staring at him as she would a stranger. Carlisle was heartbroken, drowning. But she did not offer him her hand.

"Esme..." He begged her, her name a taunting weight in the pit of his chest, slipping away into nothing. He was watching a ship sink on the high seas, letting the storm consume him.

He wanted to tell her so much more, but what did he have left to say? Everything he'd kept locked in the dungeon of his conscience was now free from the bars – the ball and chain were molten at his feet. He had played the part of a prisoner, a guard, and a refugee. Now he was just a man. Now he was just Carlisle.

Esme's eyes saw _Carlisle._

What did she think of what she had seen? Did her heart approve of Carlisle? Or did her heart still long for Doctor Cullen?

_"Please tell me we can put this behind us... I don't want to speak of this ever again..."_

He watched her beautiful face, smooth with unspeakable despair, emotionless with disbelief, eyes sparking with black electricity. She was backing away from him, refusing his touch when he wanted nothing more than to offer his touch to _someone. _

He wanted Esme to offer her touch _to him. _

He trembled in the chill she had left for him. Her slender shadow slipped through the door, the fertile echo of her scent tangling around him, taunting his senses. He could hear her sobbing upstairs in her empty bedroom. Just a day ago he might have had to battle himself to keep from breaking down her door.

But he had forced all he was willing to force on this poor woman in one night. Esme was exhausted by the outpouring of all her childhood doctor had to offer – all things scandalous but sincere.

She must have been reeling with these revelations.

Little did she realize, Carlisle was reeling even more. Only after she left him did his intoxication take flight.

This vulnerable, forceful, unbridled release of emotion – it had been glorious. In the wake of this destruction, Carlisle felt his heart caving in on itself. He felt his soul pulsing beneath the weight of the earthquake, his sins flittering around him like bickering insects...and suddenly they were free.

The very tongue of the Lord was speaking through the fire: _"No matter what you do, I will always love you, my son."_

The very words Carlisle had given to Edward, God was giving back to him.

Because as a father, Carlisle knew it was all too impossible to not forgive his son. And there came with this a bitter mixture of immense relief and resentful longing. Was it acceptable to accept his _own_ flaws with the same dignity he accepted the flaws of others? Could it even be _compassionate _to do this? To be compassionate with himself?

Here was a foul but intriguing thought.

Would revealing his every flawto those around him be a wonder rather than a crime? Would his aged burden of regret and self-torture finally be lifted were he to spill the wretched story of his every sin before his fellow man?

This was, Carlisle recalled, what many men had been commanded to do in the church – to confess their sins before the congregation, never hiding beneath a cloak of anonymity. Could it be that this practice was not as demeaning or unthinkable as he had first perceived it to be? At least in more fragile context, it could be appealing. Instead of an entire congregation, perhaps just one or two very significant people could be his audience.

Only _one _person could not hear the things Carlisle feared in himself. Only before the eyes of one woman did he now want his deepest desires unveiled.

It was incredible for Carlisle to watch Esme share her shame with was not afraid to whisper her fears, to cry for the pain she felt. She did not shy away from the worries she felt inside. She made them known – through her eyes and her lips and her faithful little fingers. She was an open book.

And only when he saw how _open _Esme was, did Carlisle realize how _closed _he was_. _

Having lived for ages without the pressure to reveal these darkest thoughts and emotions, he had cast his heart in an impenetrable shell of iron. This night, a flame had been lit – a terrible, lovely, golden flame that had the power to melt this iron barrier.

Esme must have lit this flame.

Because Esme Anne Platt was no longer his patient. He could fool his patients with much more ease. His patients did not need to see Carlisle beneath Doctor Cullen.

The only one who had seen him on such an intimate level was Annaliese. It was no wonder her bedside had been so addicting. The things he had once shared with her were unthinkable to share with anyone but a dying girl. Until now.

Annaliese was gone.

Esme was here.

But Esme was no longer his patient.

She was a woman; a remarkable one at that. She was a personwith the fullest, brightest spectrum of emotions and complications and troubles and affections he had ever witnessed. Carlisle would have never fathomed such richness could be stuffed into the heart of just one being. Little did he realize, _his_ heart was just as overflowing.

It made him ache in torture, wondering if her forgiveness was sincere. How could Esme forgive him for something if he could not forgive _himself? _It was with this thought, a trembling red ember in the back of his mind, that Carlisle retreated to the dying fire in his study with his knees on the ground and his hands locked together in prayer.

God's forgiveness was not what he asked for. He already had that.

For the first time in his life, Carlisle asked God for the strength to forgive _himself. _

He had done wrong in wishing Evenson dead. He had done wrong in allowing his son to kill for his own revenge. He had done wrong in being dishonest with Esme. And now he had to relieve himself of the burden of having committed these transgressions. From the fire, God's all-healing voice emanated in a soothing song. Succumbing to this moment of thrilling possibility, Carlisle offered his own voice to the flames.

The gratitude in his heart ruptured at the introduction of this new voice. This voice of self-forgiveness.

Pages of tender black script and ancient promises fluttered before his closed eyes. His eyes were closed to the world, but they were open to his own heart. For the first time, Carlisle truly explored the recesses of his heart; without a compass, without a guide. He should have known his own heart well enough to navigate without aid, but he found that he did not.

For so long he had been terrified to enter this sacred realm, for so long he was afraid of stepping in the wrong place. Things were sensitive and secretive here.

His fire was here.

It caressed his face with a warm blaze, a whisper of wanting Esmeas he passed it. _Find Esme's fire... _the flames murmured seductively. _Find her fire..._

For a moment of panic, Carlisle tried to ignore the fire. But it singed him every time he tried to walk around it.

He asked for divine strength, and he was granted it. With a patient hand, Carlisle soothed the flickering flames until their heat subdued and their wild dance tamed. With the fire calmed at last, Carlisle could see the wonders that lay beyond it. The smoke cleared to unveil the needs he had so long suppressed. Needs that had gone neglected in the face of eager sensuality.

Had he only taken the time to be a little more attentive before, he would have realized that his need for _Esme _went so much deeper than just physical satisfaction; even deeper than emotional understanding. Under ages of blackened soot, he uncovered his loneliness. It was too heavy to lift from the ashes. Here, it would stay, perhaps forever. It would leave a deep impression in the soft ground of his heart. Maybe one day, Esme could fill it. Maybe this was yet another need he had for Esme.

In the center of his heart, he saw _her. _Esme was here in his heart, but she looked so different here. She was open before him, offering both her body and her heart to him. Her eyes were gold here, and filled with deepest longing. She was swathed in nothing but her care for him, and he could feel her warmth as it rivaled that of his fire.

His son was here, in the chasm of his heart. Edward, too, looked different. His troubles were tranquil here; his young face was content. His eyes were filled with a different kind of longing. He looked upon his father with love uncomplicated, and shameless dependence. Carlisle wanted Edward to _need_ him, as much as he wanted Esme to need him.

Oh, to be wanted and needed.

How long had he ended this prose with the same idle thought? How long had he settled for the curse of never allowing himself to _want and need _anyone else?

Carlisle _did _want. He _did_ need.

God may have been enough in the beginning. Maybe He was still enough now. But God was offering so many more blessings, and Carlisle was blind to have not recognized them, foolish to have not accepted them. But now he knew what was keeping these blessings hidden.

Swiping away more charred bits, Carlisle found his sins. They were tucked away in the furthest corner, darkened by shameful shadows. As fearful as he was to uncover them, Carlisle bravely counted them, named them, studied them.

By refusing to acknowledge these sins for what they were, he had let them build up in that corner, clotting the only entrance to his heart. Only when he took each one, permitted himself to touch them, recognize them, _forgive _himself for them – only _then_, did Carlisle find himself not closed, but _open. _

Esme had seen the crumbling ash of these sins, blocking her way into his heart. But now he had moved them; now he was ready for her to come closer, and maybe even look inside. There was no way to truly prepare one's heart for the intrusion of another. There was no way to hide the truth once the truth _wanted _to be found.

But Carlisle _did _want Esme to find him. All of him.

As his eyes opened to the world once again, he saw that the flames were gone. The rain had washed itself away. The weight had been lifted.

He rose to his feet without struggle. He breathed in the air without sobbing.

The silence was welcoming, cleansing, renewing.

The first tiny crevice of his heart was open.

* * *

**_In explanation_****: **_Carlisle first had to forgive himself for all the years he spent regretting his every sin. In the wake of his confrontation with Edward and Esme, Carlisle realizes that the act of being entirely honest in admitting his sins is a renewal in itself. The metaphor of the exploration of his heart allowed him to see that these sins must first be revealed to Esme for her to understand the nature of his heart, and thus grow to love him for more than just what Carlisle projects himself to be (or even strictly _strives _to be)._

_Carlisle also learns here that his attraction to Esme is not something he needs to be ashamed of... He sees now that his need for her actually goes far beyond physical gratification. He sees that she can cure his emotional loneliness **and **offer him the compassion he has always felt was his duty to offer everyone else without gaining anything back. He sees the importance in confessing his sins and for accepting care and forgiveness from others in spite of those sins. Living so long without this particular interaction has taken Carlisle a while to adjust to, but this incident taught him a most valuable lesson – that to truly cure his loneliness, he must be willing to reveal all of himself to those around him, without shame._


	15. The Apology

**The Apology**

_Here is a companion chapter that reveals what happened between the big confrontation and when Edward apologizes afterwards to Esme. It's not very long, but it's certainly important. Here is how Edward and Carlisle make amends. _

_This chapter is meant to be read before Chapter 35 of Stained Glass Soul._

* * *

Carlisle's thoughts were in constant turmoil. They were burning, beating against his skull. He was weeping inside, crying for forgiveness from any being who would hear him.

He knew Edward could hear him.

He wanted his son to come to him. Because he would never intrude upon Edward, but it was well understood that he _wished _Edward would intrude upon _him_.

_My son, _his mind-voice would murmur, _I have wronged you in so many ways. I have taken advantage of you. I have neglected you to bring myself peace of mind. I have failed you. Forgive me. Please, forgive me._

Edward heard the confessions and the pleading. He heard it all, and he knew he would soon need to show his father just how clearly he heard him.

He avoided this for a while _– _some part of him savored leaving his father hanging there by the loose threads of what he'd done. He wanted Carlisle to soak in the feeling of _wrongness. _Legitimate wrongness. For once.

Edward would catch himself every time he heard his father's voice _– _with the bitter break of an edgy laugh, as if this were in any way humorous. His feelings had been through too much in too short a time, and now they were playing tricks on him. He had planned to let Carlisle go on for another day or so, but he had underestimated the bearings of his own heart.

There were so many times Carlisle looked up from his desk and saw his son standing in the doorway to his study. So many times, he lifted his eyes and was filled with a flood of unprecedented appreciation for the shadow, the silhouette, the lanky form – whatever he was shown. He was so grateful whenever Edward came to _him. _

No matter what the boy had to say, it would be important. It would matter so much to Carlisle; sometimes, for no reason at all. Edward was nearly everything to him.

Edward knew this.

And that was what made every entry into that study so heartbreaking.

Carlisle's eyes were so desperate, so noxious with need. So dark in these days, but so achingly familiar.

Edward clutched both sides of the open doorway and bedded the prints of his fingers into the malleable wood. His voice was struggling, trampling up the swollen staircase of his throat – tight and terrible, until the words were free.

"I'm sorry." They were words that took such strength to say, and with Carlisle being the recipient, they were more valuable than diamonds.

The absolute light of gratitude and love was brilliant bleach upon Carlisle's thoughts. Edward flinched and let his hands fall to his sides, surrendering to the warmth he knew would take him home again.

And the warmth returned, more forceful than he would have ever hoped. The arms of his father crushed him, housed him with mercy and forgiveness and acceptance – all of which should have been gone by now, and none of which Edward thought he deserved.

_Oh, Edward... You have done far less wrong than I have. Why must you apologize? It is I who must beg forgiveness from you, my son._

Just knowing he had this _– _the apology, the acknowledgement from his father _– _gave Edward the power to say the words himself.

"Forgive me." His words were pleading, cracked, but never regretful.

_You're forgiven, my son. Oh, you are forgiven. And you must forgive me, for everything I may have said against you... I was so blind. I thought by refusing to confess my thoughts it would make them nonexistent. I was so wrong. _

"It felt like you were blaming me." The child in Edward was jubilant to sob.

Carlisle was throbbing with anger at himself. _Lord, I am so wretched. Oh, how could I have put him through this?_

"I know you didn't mean to." Edward tried to speak strongly through the fire of impunity. "But it infuriated me."

_You had every right to be infuriated with me, my son. God knows, I deserve it. I deserve it all. _

Edward grudgingly burrowed his face into his father's cold neck, all but shaking in his sadness and frustration. "I'm so confused. I'm so—I hate this, Carlisle—I'm so..."

At a loss for words, he whimpered into silence, and his father's thoughts soothed the rough edges of his mind.

_You're just overwhelmed. We all are. We have so much to come to terms with yet. Give yourself time, Edward._

The emotions between them were so stretched and tangled, Edward could not tell which belonged to him and which belonged to Carlisle. It was almost lovely in a way.

Edward spilled the diatribe against his father's shoulder, every word strangely satisfying to hear as he cursed himself. Something was so addicting once he began. He thought perhaps this was why people went to confession.

"I've been despicable, ungrateful... I've been so... so selfish, I—I couldn't even do it—he was a demon, and I couldn't even drink his blood... It was terrifying. It was like... _I _was the demon."

"Stop." Carlisle closed the gates.

_I let you do this, Edward. Lord, I practically inspired you to commit it. You've felt that a part of me is even grateful for it _– _there is no use hiding it. It is over and it is done. It was God's will._

"God's will..." Edward murmured, slightly fascinated at the prospect that God's will could possibly be what _he _wanted as well.

Bravely, he met Carlisle's gaze again.

"You know that I still respect you... in everything that you do," he said, hoping that his words were firm, but fearing they were still so slight. "The things I said... I wish I could take them back. Don't you know that?"

_Oh, Edward..._

As every son must one day say to his father, Edward finally gave up the fight. "I wish I was what you wanted me to be."

Vehemence flooded Carlisle's heart, repeating then rejecting the words he'd heard.

_I don't want you to be anything but yourself, Edward. Just as you've asked me not to change who I am, that is what I want from you._

Edward shook his head, swallowing hard. As he lifted his face to look up at his father, his eyes glimmered with hope and defeat. "I wish I was like you."

Carlisle could not contain the fluttering jubilation that drowned his heart at this confession. His thoughts were aloft with incoherent waves of light and contentment. And a part of him even seemed to shudder in refute, as if he believed he did not deserve to be emulated in such a way by his own son.

_Edward, I cannot express in words what joy you have brought me. Yet I cannot help but feel that through all of this time, I failed you in many ways._

"Failed me?" Edward almost laughed, but his voice was small, groggy. "All you've done is _give _to me, and I've given nothing back to show how much that means to me."

_You don't need to give me anything but your company, Edward. Your presence, your kindness, your music, your mind and your heart... Those are all I want. You're irreplaceable to me. Can you not see that? _

Carlisle's eyes shone, and the scent of his sadness was unbearable.

Edward felt his fingers on familiar arms, clinging to unfamiliar fabric. It was moments like these when he wished to emit his _own _thoughts rather than to hear the ones that surrounded him. There were so many times when conveying the power of his emotions was impossible. He winced in frustration, and Carlisle held him tighter. The doctor knew nothing of the chaos behind his son's mind, yet no one else could have read his wishes better.

_It isn't fair that you had to go through this. It isn't fair for any of us. But no one is at fault, son. No one._

"I know that now," Edward muttered, enjoying deeply the way the words were muffled in their nearness. How he had missed just being _close _to someone. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..."

_Too many apologies... Why must he continue apologizing?_

"Now you know how _I_ feel," Edward accused with a sad laugh. The familiarity was so potent in that one sound, it was almost intoxicating. "Tell me you forgive me."

_I already have..._

"Tell me...out loud. Please... I want to hear your voice, Carlisle."

Carlisle looked so smittenby this request that Edward couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry.

"I forgive you, son." Somehow he managed the words without an ounce of cliché. Somehow, in the patient tenor of Carlisle's voice, words were never just words. They were the syntax of a heart. "And you must forgive _me_."

Edward nodded, still too overwhelmed to speak. The relief had taken the wind out of him. But now all of his worries were resurfacing, like tiny bubbles rising up after a stone was dropped in water.

"I hate what's happening," he told his father.

_What do you mean?_

"Esme."

The name alone was a sudden stroke of pleasure for the one who listened. Carlisle looked up at his son, vaguely thrilled and mildly uncomfortable at once.

_What about her?_

"I feel terrible for her. I said some things I shouldn't have... I'm almost afraid to talk to her. I don't want to make things worse."

Oh, how could he even be _saying _these things out loud? It was something Edward never wanted to do – pride could never let him – but to drop that pride and surrender to this reckless stream of confessions... it was wickedly wonderful in a way that disturbed him deeply.

Carlisle looked confused, and utterly astounded. His heart was searing with gladness and pity, his eyes sparkling with night and day.

_There is always time to start over, son. _

"Hm." There was nothing else he could say.

Meanwhile, Carlisle's thoughts were boiling over a fire.

_Oh, Esme... Oh, precious Esme... How must she still desire to be here with us after all that has happened? Will she ever fully forgive me for what I've put her through? Esme. Esme..._

"Carlisle."

_I'm sorry. _

His mind was so pitifully tortured.

The father and his son shared a significant glance.

_I love her, _Carlisle thought, his words blushing.

"I know."

_Will she ever speak to me again?_

Edward smiled with pity. "Anything is possible."

_I want her to come back to me, but I don't wish to rush her. I fear she's gone through far more than she may be able to handle at this point in her life. How can I help her?_

"I can't say. I just... I just don't know," Edward sighed and shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry."

Carlisle's face fell in defeat. His fingers crawled over his heart, lingering as he turned his face to the window. His eyes flickered for a moment, then he tilted his head in suggestion for Edward to follow him out the door.

It was dark outside, and very cold. Even the crickets sounded like they were shivering as they sang.

_She won't leave her room_, Carlisle thought once he'd closed the door to the house.

Edward bit his lip. "No. Not yet."

Carlisle's shoulders heaved as he placed both hands on the iron railing and let his head hang low over the edge.

_Oh, I could die, son. It kills me to see her this way. _

Edward picked nervously at a loose thread on his vest. "She's not too fond of seeing you in agony, either."

_She cares for me..._

It was almost but not quite a question.

"Of course she does, Carlisle."

_Does she have any inkling of how fiercely I care for her?_

"She knows you wanted her wretched husband dead," Edward reminded with a conservative revival of his signature smirk. "I'd say that's pretty strong evidence."

After a reassuring moment of silence, Edward moved to join his father by the railing. His hand slid over the slim iron bar to rest inches away from Carlisle's, and he noticed the paleness of their skin matched uncannily. Somehow he'd forgotten this, and somehow this was comforting to remember.

They were the same. Sort of.

Carlisle turned his head up to the young crescent moon and sighed.

_I've come so close to telling her my true feelings, Edward. But every time I think I'm ready, something like this happens and it stops me. I think God is telling me it's not the right time._

Edward did not dismiss this worry by the mention of God. His best interests were sparked by the plea in his father's inner voice. "When do you think the right time will be?"

Carlisle was silent for a long while, his posture shifting between tenseness and ease while the moon watched him struggle. The silvery beams at last seemed to calm him, and he stroked a finger absently over the end of his collar, settling on the cross beneath.

_We don't really know each other, Esme and I... Not really. We skim the surface, even when we speak of our insecurities. Until now I've never truly shown her the nature of my heart._

Edward felt the pressure to speak. "Part of that is my fault. I've kept you apart."

Carlisle's jaw grew firm.

_Because of me, son. You were displeased with me. _

"I don't regret Esme staying with us," Edward whispered sternly at first, but then his voice softened. "I do regret that she had to suffer the brutality of being transformed into a vampire without choice..." Carlisle winced. "...But I know that _you _regret that just as much, Carlisle."

The doctor whimpered wearily as his fingers pulled roughly through his blond hair.

_I want to give her everything she never had. I want to take away everything she ever sought relief from. I want to love her ... but will she let me?_

Edward was mildly shaken by the curiously poetic flow of Carlisle's thoughts. Everything Edward wished he could tell his father just sat there like a taunting bundle of frozen secrets in the back of his head.

"You want Esme to _accept_ your love, not feel threatened by it," Edward said carefully. "You need to find a way to let her know of your feelings without bombarding her. Let them slip through gradually; she'll come to see it. Give it time."

Edward stood back, slightly impressed with his own advice. He watched it sink into Carlisle's thoughtful eyes, and then he sighed.

_Time... God help us. We all need more time. _

Carlisle and Esme loved each other, for reasons that so far made strange but perfect sense. It was a precursor to destiny, Edward supposed. They had barely known more than what they saw on the other's surface, and yet they wanted to give everything of themselves to each other. They wanted to give everything, and they were reluctant to give it, but they were still so desperate to try.

They needed to try harder. They needed Edward's cooperation to do this. They needed time.

Time, to Carlisle, was a droplet in an ocean. He was done with time – and time was done with him.

But still he asked for it, so Edward gave his consent.

"Time, we have."


	16. The Heart Grows Fonder

**The Heart Grows Fonder**

_While Esme suffers the absence of her doctor during the blizzard in Chapter 39, Carlisle endures much the same torture as he finds himself stranded between the walls of St. Thomas More Hospital. _

* * *

Carlisle Cullen hated the cold.

He always hesitated to use any derivative of the word "hatred." It was an ugly word, an unfortunate craft of the English language that he often wished did not exist. But he allowed himself to hate a few things, being very careful about what he had chosen for this delicate list. The cold was awfully close to the top.

Today, Carlisle hated the snow as well.

His sentiments surrounding snow had never been particularly unfavorable. In fact, he'd often found beauty in it, naming it a wonder of nature many times in his free writings. _Stray feathers from an angel's wing, drops of frozen lace, fluffy white stars… _

A convenient blizzard had preserved his identity on more than one occasion, and sometimes the snow felt protective in a way – a strong white fortress of frost and ice. There had been times when he preferred to remain inside, away from the trials and challenges of his daily routine.

Now he was trapped at his place of work. Now came the real test. Now he would find just how strong his devotion to the physician's world truly was.

Recuperation required a few silent minutes of staring out the window of his office with his hands buried in his hair.

His window was smeared with a sheen of blue and silver frost – a brilliant gradient behind shattered stained glass – each crystal shining like a tiny metallic fish-scale. It looked like a mermaid had been slaughtered on the window pane. It was cold and violent and disgustingly beautiful.

Yet all Carlisle could think of when he looked at that crystalline mess were Esme's paintings. He imagined her standing before the glass pane on her tiptoes, reaching with her slender arm to swipe her brush across the frosted figures. Her imagination led her in so many confusing and wonderful directions, her newborn energy endearing as she lost herself in the composition. He found himself smiling sadly, the pang of her absence twisting in his chest.

He had never anticipated that this would happen, that this blizzard would tear them apart. And though Carlisle trusted Edward (sometimes more than he trusted himself), he wished he could have had the good sense to go home when he'd had the chance.

But was it better to abandon the patients who needed him here?

He'd never had to make the choice between patients and family before. In Edward's case, it went without question that the boy needed watching over. Carlisle had quit working altogether in those days. But now Edward was able to fend for himself, able to protect the newborn woman they kept in their home. It was unlikely that something would happen to them, but for entirely selfish reasons, Carlisle wished to escape and return to them in the night.

The thought was perhaps even ignominious as much as it was laughable. _Abandon his duties as a doctor just to see Esme's face light up when he came through that door... _But as much as he tried, Carlisle could not see it as a ridiculous wish.

No, it was not ridiculous that he wished to see her again. He wished for it every night – this was nothing if not familiar to him. Even with just a few floorboards to separate them, he had missed her presence. He could hear the soft pat of her footsteps on the ceiling of his study back home, as she paced her bedroom in the middle of the night. He had often wondered what made her so restless in the evening. Sometimes he wished to call for her, invite her to sit by the fire and talk for a while. Sometimes he found the courage to do just that, and she would always accept his invitation with a shy smile. But now he did not even have that option.

How preposterous it seemed now that he had once warred with himself endlessly over whether to invite her downstairs. Those nights when he had settled to not say anything and remain idle in his loneliness now seemed a grand waste. Only now when he did not even have the song of her footsteps above him did Carlisle realize how foolish he had been for even hesitating.

He should have invited Esme to join him _every _night.

In fact when he returned, he promised himself that he would do just that.

Then again, he would most likely hesitate when the moment presented itself.

The things this woman did to meddle with his decision-making! Even the simplest choices now required hours of thought with Esme in the mix. She affected everything, as everything seemingly affected her. It was a delicate balancing act trying to keep up with her needs and conditions. In so many ways, she was still his patient.

Esme... his patient.

Thinking of her in this way made Carlisle ache even more. Her face was a beautiful blend of immortal youth and innocent childhood, her eyes were an unsettling emulsion of fire and earth. She was freckled and blemish-free, and fair-skinned but blushing wildly...because he was touching her ankles.

Would Esme still blush if he were to touch her ankles now? Would she still suffer from those fair pink blossoms of heat on her cheeks if he trapped the sole of her foot in his hand?

_Dangerous thoughts, _the Lord whispered.

Carlisle ignored the subtle warning, intending to savor the dreams for a few moments longer.

The dark, sterile office around him shimmered into shadow as he closed his eyes and breathed in the imagined scent of his beloved. From the fire, her fruit-like fragrance followed his soul, flirtatiously chasing it down into the pit of his stomach. There, they mingled in the safety of this dark place they had found. He touched his fingers to the place where Esme's essence lingered, shocked to find it was far deeper than he'd expected.

A fragile gasp fell from his lips as he touched himself, for just an instant. His fingers felt the fabric tighten and he pulled away. All the warmth in his body fled, replaced by a wave of coldness. The room brightened back to life, and Esme, his patient, disappeared into the dry winter air.

He could no longer see her, but she was never really gone. Esme was always there, hovering in his mind, painting gentle compositions on the inner walls of his heart. She had boldly made her home there, in the most sensitive grove of his chest. She was growing ever more comfortable in the space the longer she stayed.

With a start, Carlisle heard someone calling him from down the hall. He raised his head, fingers pushing the blond strands away from his eyes to reluctantly look upon the rest of the world.

He was tired of being called "Doctor."

After all the time he'd been spending at home, he'd grown partial to the sound of his own name falling like silk from Esme's lovely lips.

Esme called him _"Carlisle."_

Everyone else called him "_Doctor._"

Sometimes in the dead hours of night, he swore he heard her saying his name in the shadows of his office. He looked up from his prayer book, hoping to see her sensuous silhouette in the door, but nothing was there.

He could only imagine her. He could only pretend that her voice echoed in the room, that her breath tickled his ear, that her slender shadow rippled over the walls. It was a sick luxury to have a woman call him by his first name so often. He'd been terribly spoiled by her these past few months. Though she seemed to shy away from saying it whenever she could, Carlisle's name never sounded anything less than glorious when Esme let it fall from her lips.

Good Lord, his entire body tingled just thinking of it. The way she made his name sound like such a blessed word. Guiltily, he wondered how it would sound in a desperate whisper against his lips.

"Doctor Cullen!" The voice that was clearly not Esme's called to him again.

With a grudging sigh and a hollow ache in his stomach, Carlisle reluctantly donned his white coat and returned to the madness outside his peaceful office.

The hospital was supposed to be his second home. There had been a time when it _was _his home. Now it felt like the furthest thing from home. He was in survival mode between these white walls when he should have been helping people to survive. He should have felt that full, weighty sense of completion and importance as he saved lives and helped patients, but all that filled his chest was a sick void of emptiness.

He should have been steady and sure about every movement, but he was trembling. He should have been calm and at ease when he reached the end of the hall, but he was breathless and panting. He was flustered at the siren of an approaching ambulance, shocked at the hitch in a dying man's heartbeat. He failed to keep a few of them alive, and it killed him. It tore his heart to pieces when he should have brushed it aside and charged onward, ready for conquest in any battle that would come his way.

It was tragic, he thought, how Esme had made him weaker. In other ways, it was true, she had made him stronger as well. But those ways were private, more inward, more personal. His ability to devote himself had strengthened, his ability to acknowledge his lesser perfect qualities and mostly to embrace those shameful parts of himself he owed entirely to her. But on the outside, Carlisle was a breathless mess.

Everyone in the hospital wondered what the hell was going on with him. Doctor Cullen, always in command even in the direst situations, always the one everyone else looked to for guidance, was utterly lost.

He had winced when the electricity failed without warning, the cries and shrieks of the men and women around him a testament to how shamefully dependent humans were on their electronic aids. The sudden swarm of candles and oil lamps that had filled the ward were oddly comforting to him. The companionship of candles was something he had missed from his home, something of which he allowed himself the secret luxury only when hibernating in his office at night. Now they were everywhere, the familiar dance of flames happy to join him in his place of work. Carlisle felt that he performed far better under the gentle glow of candlelight than under the harsh synthetic rays of fluorescent bulbs.

"You don't seem yourself tonight, Doc," Mr. Gardelli croaked from his bed. Carlisle turned in surprise to find the eighty-year-old's worn brown eyes staring up at him with unsettling acuteness.

Carlisle sighed, the dangerous seduction of free speech bubbling up within him against his will. He could tell this man his entire story if he wanted. Gregori Gardelli was certain to pass on any day now. It could be the same as it had been with...Annaliese. Carlisle still suppressed a shudder from one thought of the fragile beauty, forever frozen in her bed. The images haunted him endlessly - the pallor of her young face as she took her last breath, the worn blue blanket he had placed over her head to hide the evidence of her death. He recalled the taunting scent of her virginal blood, struggling to beat down the memory before it consumed him.

He had to save those regrets for another time.

"In all honesty, sir, I am _not _myself these days," Carlisle admitted softly to his patient, his eyes sad.

"It's this blizzard business, in't?" the old man asked with a curt wave at the window.

Carlisle's eyes drifted slowly to the snow-coated glass. "I suppose..."

"Bah! I'm telling you, these storms are a bad omen," he grunted darkly. "I'm done for. Tonight's the night, I know it this time!"

"Now don't talk like that," the doctor chided gently as he made his way to the cabinets.

"Come on, Doc. I ain't no fool. I'm a damn fossil. Even we veterans got an expiration date."

Carlisle bowed his head politely and paused his rummaging through the medicine shelves, waiting for the inevitable comment.

Sure enough, the man behind him mused perplexedly, "There's somethin' different about you, I know it. And it ain't the weather neither."

Carlisle turned to face his inquisitive patient with a fixed smile of indifference.

"It's the weather," he assured.

"Ah, ah." The man's eyebrows raised slowly as he lifted an argumentative finger in the air. Disturbed by the suspicious sparkle in his eye, Carlisle quickly faced the other way, feigning preoccupation with the window blinds.

"Sei innamorato," the man murmured wisely from his bed.

The familiar flow of Italian struck Carlisle in the heart as he immediately turned his head.

"That is a very bold presumption, sir," he said in a hushed voice.

The elder's face was unaffected.

"I think it would be very fine if you called me 'Gregori' now, Doctor Cullen."

Speechless, Carlisle simply stared at his patient, hands still frozen on the ends of his stethoscope as if holding on for dear life.

"There's no fooling an ancient sap like me, son," the man said with a smile.

"I'm sorry, I don't think this is appropriate to discuss—"

"Do you want me to die happy or not, Doc?"

With a forced sigh, Carlisle set himself down on the edge of the rough mattress and folded his hands complacently. "What do you want to know?"

"I wanna know about your girl. What does she look like? Is she pretty?" he leaned forward eagerly, and Carlisle suppressed a pang of sympathy. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to provide at least a moment's worth of entertainment for the poor old man, if even just to sate his curiosity.

"I don't have a girl," Carlisle humored.

The Italian glared at his doctor humorlessly.

Carlisle struggled with the word he knew would take a fair amount of effort to say. "I have a... a woman."

At this, Gregori smiled somewhat slyly. "Alright, then."

"But it's not what you think," Carlisle interjected hastily. "She's... We're..." He tried but failed to put into words exactly what they had at this moment in time. He settled to sigh in disappointment. "It's complicated."

"That's the way love is, son." The bedridden man gave a knowing chuckle. "Complicated."

The doctor shook his head. "Not to be pretentious, but our situation is exceptionally so."

A small but outraged smile crossed the old man's wrinkled face as he said soundly, "You haven't even told her, have you?"

Carlisle did a double-take, stunned. This was the second time one of his dying patients had tried to convince him of his heart's true calling, and it was starting to scare him.

"I have not told her, no," he admitted as casually as possible.

"The hell... You young people got nothin' better to do than waste your early years away!"

Carlisle couldn't help but grin at the irony. "With all due respect, sir, I've had many experiences most men my age won't have until they are well past their prime."

"Oh, oh, I believe you," the man nodded surely. "You are a doctor, after all. That's gotta throw some interesting days at you."

"It has," Carlisle agreed, "but I wouldn't give it up for the world."

"I bet you wouldn't. And that's somethin' to be admired. Don't lose that."

_What a reminder to have on this night._

"I assure you, I won't."

"Ahh..." The old man shifted comfortably against his pillow. "Now, Doc, when all this blizzard rubbish is over and done with, you gotta go and tell this woman of yours that you got your heart on a knife's edge for her, and if she don't jump at the chance to save it for you, you better pick up your feet and forget 'er, because I tell ya, you don't wanna be wasting your time on a girl like that."

Carlisle smiled wryly as he half-listened to his patient's well-meaning rambling. Something like bitter pity filled his heart as he considered the aggressive suggestion, but every time he entertained the thought, a wayward warning would interrupt it.

Long ago, Carlisle had made a promise that he would wait for Esme. When she asked to be saved, or perhaps, when she offered to save him, he would do it. He would pull her into his arms and pour out all his love for her under the merciful sun. Because that was how true love made itself known. The moment would be all-consuming, spiritually stunning – a warm, striking kiss to his soul. And she would feel it all as he felt it. They would be bound in their senses, tangled in their unspoken words, lost in their adoration for one another as the world around them melted like paint on poorly prepared canvas.

"You look like you've gone someplace far, far away, Doctor," a hoarse voice entered his ears from a distance.

Carlisle lightly shook his head of the clinging thoughts. "Forgive me. I've been getting ahead of myself."

"Sure better to get ahead than to fall behind."

"Hmm...True."

"Let me tell you somethin', Doc. If this lady of yours got any love for you, she'll be missing you just as much as you'll be missing her. When you go back to her for that first time since you left her, oh..." His eyes grew bright with what was obviously reminiscence as he spoke. "You'll never get another greeting like _that_ as long as you live. You know what they say: 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'"

Carlisle's eyes drifted back to the snowflakes dancing in the window, feeling oddly warm even while watching the frost foam over the glass.

Unintentionally, the words lilted from his lips, "_Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows_."

"Huh?"

Carlisle shrugged with a good-natured smile. "I prefer the Roman version to the Shakespearean. Personal reasons."

Gregori grinned, somehow looking fifty years younger in the poor lighting. "You throw some of that at her, and she won't be able to resist you."

_Esme unable to resist him... Now there was a keen thought. _

Smiling helplessly, Carlisle finally found a spare moment to lift his stethoscope to his ears. "I'll keep that in mind."

******-}0{-**

Gregori Gardelli passed away that very evening, whilst mumbling about true love's woes in his sleep. No other doctor in the room had heard him, but Carlisle had. The half-formed words left a haunting impression in his mind, doomed to follow him everywhere he went for the rest of the night.

The hospital grew colder around him as the blizzard raged on. The longer they went without heat, the more the patients' conditions worsened. Carlisle retreated during the spare minutes he had between shifts, tossing open his prayer book and begging God fervently to help the horrors pass. Because no human could spare to spend the entire night praying, Carlisle filled the hours for them, with his single voice.

Heaven heard him.

The next morning was peaceful, despite the sea of swarming white snowflakes outside. Blankets were gathered, and patients were properly quarantined under his supervision. Carlisle had somehow reclaimed his position of power overnight. The people listened to him now. He was not scattered or flustered or breathless. He was hopeful, but strong and reassuring.

"_What would we do without you, Doctor?" _They shook their heads, their voices impassioned. Carlisle felt guilty and needed and powerful, all at once. It was a strange blend of emotions, an unstable concoction.

It was daunting to have people looking up to him with such dependence, but as he had said before, he wouldn't have given it up for the world. Doctor Cullen gladly returned to saving lives one at time, over the next few days reacquainting himself with the subtle satisfaction he gleaned from his job. It was starting to look a little brighter, but as soon as he was caught in a moment of solitude, his mind returned to Esme.

What would she say if she could see him now? His imagination indulged him with her gentle cooing voice:

"_The things you do for these people, Carlisle… I'm so proud of you…" Her hand tucked around his cheek, and her face appeared before him in a shimmer of weak white lights. _

_Her lips curved notoriously into that endearing lopsided smile. His heart quivered in delight as she gingerly weaved her fingers through his hair, her touch so loving it pierced every soft spot in his soul. Her eyes were caring and bright, staring up at him from at least a head below his height. Her head tilted to the side, her eyelids drooping softly as her gaze flickered fondly over his face. "You are such a wonderful doctor… So kind…" She touched his jaw. "So generous…" She cupped his chin. "So…" _

_He never found out what other quality he held in excess before she pulled herself up onto her toes and touched her lips to his. The feel of her in his dreams was warm and weak. He could only take so much before he needed more. At the brink of their weary kiss, his mounting desperation charged him like a lion, leaving him empty and cold. _

It felt terrible to think of Esme like this.

A shadow crept over Carlisle's face as he longed for her, recalled a snippet of her charming laughter, or a frustrating flicker of her warm sunset eyes. He tried not to whisper when he saw these visions, but sometimes her name was uncontainable. Somehow, an innocent breath formed the telltale syllables without him trying at all.

_"Ess – may." _

The gentle exchange of oxygen never sounded so lovely.

He _had _to write.

Carlisle realized suddenly how desperately he had longed to hold a pen between his fingers and hear the scratch of low ink against paper. He had been far too busy for even a second to spare hovering over his journal, but tonight he planned to make the time. He needed to speak to Esme, even if it was just in writing. Even if she would never read it.

As he worked, he fantasized about writing, the pen and the ink and the paper – as if they were objects of lust. As he filled injections with fluid, it only reminded him of ink filling a fountain pen. As he listened to hearts beating under the stethoscope, he could think only of the scratch-slither-tap sounds of the pen dancing against the paper.

All day he was running the words through his head, planning what to say to her when he finally had that open pair of pages beneath his hand. He would be rough to the paper when he finally had the chance to write. He would not stop if he accidentally tore through the pages or crinkled a smooth corner. He would be desperate and hungry and frantic. He would allow himself to be this way where no one would witness him but the snowflakes that fluttered idly outside his window.

The candles could watch as well if they wished.

In his mind, he thought of everything he intended to say to her. All of it came pouring in like warm molasses – perfect and rich and sweet. In his mind, the words he wanted to say to her were as clear as they were bold. They were brilliant, empowering, and sensuous. They were Truth.

_Esme, I am missing you. _

It was, he thought, a proper way to begin the entry.

_I wonder if you are missing me. Do you think of me, Esme? Do you wonder about me when I am not in your presence? _

_My heart grows ever fonder of you, though we are torn apart. Is this not the cursed tragedy elaborated in stories of age? Do not all lovers suffer this sting when they cannot be together? Are we meant to be forever beside one another, my Esme? Is this our only cure? _

_I do not regret being here by any means. I am surrounded by illness and disaster, but in a way I am happy between the walls of this hospital. I am content to be a doctor for the people who need me. Yes, I am needed here. I have told you before how I long to be needed. I have told you at least half the story of my soul. I am sorry to say that the story in its entirety is not yet complete. I need you, Esme, to finish the story I have started. I need you to fill in the missing words, to offer abundant adjectives, to brighten my sorry drabbles with your love and warmth. _

_I think of you, always, when I tend to a sickly child. I wonder how your eyes would flood with tears upon seeing their innocent suffering. My heart aches when I imagine the way you would surely cover your ears if you heard their hollow cough. If you saw the redness of their noses, and the paleness of their brows, and the bleak remains of a sparkle in their eyes... you would cry, my love. And I could only do so little to comfort you at the sight. These children would haunt your hopeless heart, my Esme. You would break down in devastation, and I would capture you in my arms and share your pain. _

_How I wish you were here._

_I want to be near you, Esme. When we are apart my heart weeps. My soul falls asleep. My eyes see in black and white. My ears hear in monotones. My lungs are crushed inside my chest and I ache when I try to breathe. Because I know that the air around me is full of toxins and blood _—_ the perfume of suffering _—_ and your sweet scent is nowhere to be found. _

_I watch the snow fall outside my window with weary eyes. Not a day goes by where I do not fantasize about running home to you. This blizzard poses no threat to me. There is no barrier between us, my angel. I would burst through those white flakes with absolute ease. I could be at our doorstep in but a few minutes... yet I am trapped. My frustration is brutal, my darling. I know that I am capable of returning to you at any moment I wish, yet my duties keep me chained to this office, to the bedside of a dying patient. _

_I am filled with jealousy as I watch the priest give the last rites to a patient who suffered under the inadequacy of my hand. I am ashamed with myself for letting another life slip between my fingers. I should have succeeded; I should have tried harder, done better, been faster, worked longer. I am always berating myself for what I have failed to do. But I know that if you were here with me, I would hear your tender voice telling me that I did all I could. You, in your kindhearted ways, Esme, would assure me that I had done everything right. You would take my hand and remind me of all that is good, and offer me comfort where no one else could. _

_You would save me, Esme, if only you were here. Quite bluntly, you would save me._

This was what he planned to write.

In the evening, Carlisle lit five candles for his desk and reached into the drawer for his journal.

He reached a little deeper, and moved his hand around.

He pulled the drawer open a little wider, and held a candle up to glance inside.

He yanked the drawer completely from the desk and held the wooden compartment in his lap.

And as he stared at the cold, plain evidence that nothing was inside, Carlisle realized he had left his journal at home.

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ Esme happens across Carlisle's journal where he left it, in Chapter 40 of Stained Glass Soul. Thank you for reading! I would appreciate any comments or feedback you can give. _


	17. The Warmest Welcome

**The Warmest Welcome**

_This shows a little before and the end of Chapter 40 of __Stained Glass Soul__, when Carlisle comes home to Esme. _

* * *

The director of the emergency department at St. Thomas More Hospital was a graying man by the age of fifty who possessed a pair of twenty-year-old legs. Mr. Aber was fast on his feet, always seeming to be in two places at once, which was appropriate given the nature of his demanding job. His dark Syrian eyes were sharp and fixed on the work of every doctor in his department as he slipped in and out of the ward every morning with one hand flying across his clipboard.

On the nineteenth morning of December, it appeared the snow had finally let up. The thick plumes of clouds overhead parted to reveal pleasant peeks of icy blue sky shining through. Carlisle watched the sky's sweet apology from his office window, his heart lightening with hope as he rose to his feet.

If he listened carefully, he could hear traffic in the distance. One truck, one clunking automobile grinding against the slush – but it was something.

Carlisle checked his patients quickly that morning, but his mood was bright enough to make up for the shortness of every visit. They must have noticed he was acting strangely, but no one said anything. They never could quite figure Doctor Cullen out.

By the mid-afternoon, he had counted the welcome sounds of two more cars struggling on the road outside. Glancing out at the lot, his mood instantly skyrocketed as he watched the half-hearted foolery of two teenage boys who had been assigned to clear the staff's cars of the snow.

Today was the day. He was going home.

Barely able to suppress his joy, Carlisle rushed through the hall, making his last minute rounds with a suspicious speed. He perhaps should have been more mindful to act lethargic given that he'd been on his feet for fourteen hours, but he trusted that no one would say anything. Everyone, it seemed, was in a pleasant mood, no matter how tired they were. The end to a brutal blizzard had that sort of effect on people.

Carlisle made a final clean sweep of his office, gathering up everything he needed before leaving for home. He was never more grateful to don his coat and brave the weather, because this time what awaited him would be well worth the journey.

He locked the door to his office with practically shaking hands, too eager to stop and see if the key had done its job before he pocketed it and turned around.

Directly across from him, standing tall and sharp, was Mr. Aber, director of the emergency department.

Carlisle instantly straightened up, mimicking the familiar motion many of his colleagues performed when faced with their superior. "Good afternoon, sir," the words tumbled out.

Mr. Aber nodded once, clinging to his clipboard as he stepped forward, unintentionally trapping the blond doctor beside his office door. "A word?"

"By all means," Carlisle consented.

"Doctor Cullen, you have been a tremendous help to our hospital during this difficult time, as I'm sure you know."

Carlisle winced modestly. "I wouldn't approach my duties with anything less than a full effort, sir."

"Yes, I am aware of that. However, many of our doctors have unfortunately lost sight of that motivation during these past few days." The man paused for effect, turning his eyes down discreetly to the piece of yellow paper on his clipboard before he continued pointedly, "We're very grateful for you, sharing your time and talents so generously…"

The words that came out of his mouth faded into the background as Carlisle half-listened, knowing and dreading what was coming next.

"…Which is why, Doctor Cullen, you have been selected as a candidate to fill the place of the late Doctor Alan Hastings as chief of surgery."

Carlisle blinked in apparent shock while a thousand thoughts whisked through his mind. A promotion meant more time away from home, more stress, more worry over Edward and most especially over Esme. Carlisle had never turned such an opportunity down in the past, when being given more time in the hospital had been a blessing. Now it was simply an impediment to the life he was just beginning to prefer more.

"I'm sorry, I—" Carlisle stuttered, if anything enhancing the naturalness of his expected reaction.

"You're one of three being considered, Doctor," Mr. Aber interrupted quietly. "This position is not guaranteed; although I will say you are the favored one among our directors at this time."

Carlisle drew in a deep breath and murmured a reluctantly genuine 'thank you.' It was the first time he had seen the stoic Syrian give a smile – even though it was small, it made Carlisle feel sufficiently guilty all the same.

With one last exchange of nods, the men politely parted ways to walk in opposite directions of the sterile hallway – one heading back to trauma, and the other heading home. Hopefully.

Carlisle's mood was difficult to dampen as he approached the washed out light of the exit doors. He breathed in relief to see that the sky was bright, but sufficiently overcast, knowing he would not have to wait before leaving as he had feared. Perhaps God was on his side this morning after all.

At the brief thought of divine intervention, Carlisle was greeted warmly by Father Simon and Sister Beatrice on his way past the chapel at the corner of the long hallway. Though it pained Carlisle to admit it to himself, every time his eyes met those of the popular pastor, his heart cringed in the strangest sensation – something between jealousy and inadequacy. Deep in the back of his head, a voice seemed to sigh, _"This is what you could have been. This was your destiny. To be a priest."_

The man's pale, calming eyes were hardly patronizing, but Carlisle felt as if they could see straight into the hollow space where his soul resided.

"We thank you dearly for all of your hard work this season, Doctor Cullen," Sister Beatrice gushed. The warm smile that crossed her wrinkled face brought a distinct sparkle to her wise old eyes as she took his hand and held it between both of hers in a gesture of silent blessing.

"I'm always pleased to be of service here, Sister," Carlisle said softly, waiting patiently for her to let go of his hand. He supposed if she were waiting for his skin to warm up, he could be stuck standing there for a while.

Father Simon politely intervened, "The Lord has certainly blessed us with your charitable alacrity."

Carlisle fought hard to ignore the umbrageous twisting beneath his heart at the priest's well-meaning praise. As a mere doctor, he hated that it was so difficult to accept recognition for benevolence from someone who had been deemed more holy than he.

Suppressing the ridiculous urge to sob, Carlisle accepted the man's kind words with a smile, and finally Sister Beatrice released his trapped hand.

"Take care now," she ordered in proper motherly fashion.

"God be with you," Father Simon followed coolly.

A stream of shortcomings tampered with Carlisle's inner peace as he departed with yet another murmured 'thank you.'

Abusing the blessing he had just been given, Carlisle began to silently pray that he would face no more interruptions in his quest to reach the exit.

The distinct feeling that everything would turn out fine had resurrected once again as he caught the laughter of the boys in the parking lot, followed by another crushing groan of tires on snow.

Just before he could reach the door, though, Carlisle was stopped once again in his tracks, this time by a young woman in white.

The familiar face of Nurse Catherine Martin practically glowed in the commanding fluorescence of the hall. She lifted her curious blue eyes to the doctor before her and spoke in her naturally whispery voice. "Doctor Cullen, may I speak with you?"

He couldn't resist such hopeful politeness if he'd tried. "Of course."

Turning quickly to see the exit door directly behind her, Catherine's eyes widened in regret. "Oh—I'm so sorry, were you just about to leave?"

Carlisle's chest tightened in guilt, suddenly feeling awfully selfish for being so eager in his departure.

"A few more minutes isn't going to hurt," he assured with a smile.

He had meant the expression to be forgiving, but it had somehow appeared more recklessly charming to the woman before him. The luxurious flush that filled her youthful face was a despicable temptation for him after having no blood for weeks. Carlisle had been so distracted with the trauma of his patients that he had somehow gone through the brief period of abstinence with minimal irritation in his throat. But this incident reminded him of his thirst – strikingly.

He settled to hold his breath for a few moments of recuperation while she composed herself.

Self-consciously tucking a tendril of chestnut hair behind her ear as she moved to the side, Catherine began to speak, staring hard at the floor as the sentence spilled out. "I—Well, I just thought that you should know how thankful we all are for you, especially for all you've done these past few days."

A pang of pity beat against his heart as he watched her struggle with the familiar speech. Although Carlisle had been forced to hear the same words too many times this morning, he hadn't the heart to stop this girl when her intentions were so pure. So he listened attentively and let her finish.

"I went to Mr. Aber this morning," she whispered. Carlisle's heart dropped as her innocent blue eyes lifted. "I told him you deserved the promotion."

As preposterous as it was for someone in Mr. Aber's position to listen to a young, inexperienced nurse in such an important consideration, it was admittedly not surprising in this case. Carlisle had no means of denying the fact that for a human, Catherine Martin was perhaps one of the prettiest he had ever laid eyes on. She could have charmed the coldest cobra with her unassumingly gentle nature. Many a male patient would have permanently given up a limb if it meant winning her heart.

And it was not unclear to anyone that the entire hospital believed Nurse Catherine's most fitting match was and forever would be the mysterious, miraculously lonesome Doctor Carlisle Cullen. They were both kind-hearted and soft-spoken healers. Both young, both dedicated, both attractive…

Catherine Martin was the only nurse in the hospital under the age of twenty-five who had not attempted to anoint Doctor Cullen's sleeves with powdered sugar. Somehow, this made her a more than genuine person in his eyes. She cared for him without cause, and this was slightly disturbing to him.

Carlisle glanced about the hall for a moment, nervous that they might have been being watched as they usually were. But nothing but the empty white walls and the sound of distant cars struggling on the road outside were present.

He turned his gaze down to her again, watching the silent hope in her liquid eyes falter as she awaited his response.

"Oh, Catherine, I'm flattered," he began softly, heartbroken when he felt the heat of her blush touch his skin once again. "Though I must be honest in saying I don't believe I am the most deserving of the position."

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Who else could deserve it as much as you?" she asked, her voice throaty as she moved slightly closer to him.

Carlisle took one uncomfortable step back as the hot perfume of her blood assaulted him. He was uneasy with the notion that they were all alone in the hospital hallway, standing close because of the cold, talking in hushed tones about something secretive. This was rapidly turning into a backdrop romance, and he could not succumb to something he should have seen coming long ago. If someone were to see them…

"I'm terribly sorry, but I'd rather not speak any further on the matter. I hope you'll understand."

As her face fell, Carlisle's stomach followed.

He almost reached out to lift her chin in apology, but he knew such an intimate gesture would have been a grave mistake.

His hands firmly at his sides, Carlisle whispered his goodbye to the young woman and let himself out into the cold, promising himself that he would not dwell on any thoughts of Catherine Martin for the rest of the day.

The two young boys who were out dusting cars had unfortunately not made very much progress in the midst of their fooling around. Naturally Carlisle was unable to help himself, and he approached the boys with the offer to help them clear the entire lot.

From the window, he caught the sorrowful sight of Nurse Catherine's tear-stained face behind the glass, her hand held against her heart as she watched him come to the aid of every person who attempted to brave the snow and ice.

It was perhaps the most challenging image he had ever tried to ignore.

Carlisle stayed on the hospital property well until the late evening, a drastic change from his original plan to leave _before_ everyone else. Because no one else could stand to stay out in the cold for so long, he felt it was his duty to do so where others were unable. Before he knew it, the sky was pitch black above him as night fell once again. He was still here, in the hospital lot _– _still bringing patients in, still helping his colleagues clear their cars, still watching the longing blue eyes of his admirer from the first floor window.

He should have never stayed so long.

When the activity finally began to die down it was nearly midnight. Carlisle at last took the time to dust off his own car, bursting with anxiety when the engine sputtered. He managed to drive just a quarter of the distance through town before the engine failed completely. The rest of the journey would have to be finished on foot.

His gait was sure and swift as he navigated the deep snow through the woods that surrounded the roads. As he walked at a natural human's pace, Carlisle missed the weight of his journal against his hip. His stomach filled with a sickly emptiness as he thought of the words he had yet to write down in ink. His head sang those words, over and over in silence. The song would not end, he supposed, until he had his journal open to a clean pair of pages again.

Thinking of Esme's sweet face in the brutally cold night made his heart shiver with want. It was an entirely innocent kind of want as well, which now surprised him. He was again back to that desperate feeling of wanting _closeness – _and that was all. The want ended there. Just closeness, just company, just the arms of another reaching for him, unafraid, and near enough to touch.

The distressing image of the blue-eyed nurse he had gently turned away stung him again as he trudged along, trying to abandon the thought by picking up his pace.

Carlisle's footsteps crushed the snow in a slow icy melody as he trudged along. His boots were cold and tight around his feet, his coat insufficiently warm as it weighed down on his shoulders, the handle of his medical bag seemingly glued by frost inside his grip. All of these felt oddly unpleasant to the doctor, though he should have been unfazed by such insignificant sensations. He felt very human walking out in the woods, alone, in the middle of the night. And though he knew his destination promised company, prolonging the time it took to get there was a necessary cover in the event that someone might happen across him on the side of the road.

Every so often he passed empty automobiles that had skidded off the ice. Carlisle checked the windows of every one to be sure that no one was stranded, in need of assistance. Every car on the side of the road had been abandoned, just as his had been. A mile or so behind him, his Cadillac was still frozen in a snow bank in the shoulder of the street. He would not be going back to rescue it any time soon, either. His motivations were frighteningly low for anything that disrupted his one glowing goal: to reach his home.

Everything around him seemed to darken and compress unpleasantly. His thirst torched at the hint of animals in the distance, but he was not going to waste his time hunting when his desire to reach his house was uncontainable.

Carlisle quickly grew too anxious to wait any longer. Knowing there was no chance that anyone would pass him by in the middle of the night when the roads were so bad, he took a daring risk by breaking into a run.

The sun was just beginning to rise low on the horizon. He could see the faint, oceanic blue glow in a small corner of the forest as he swept through, stirring up snow as he went. The woods were eerily quiet, and the steadfast silence over the course of his short journey made his need to hear familiar voices ever greater.

He could already hear the feather-light echoes of his son's deep, slightly gravelly voice... and the sweet, delicate waves of words that composed Esme's melodious alto.

Carlisle was not even sure whether the sounds were real or imagined. He was close enough now that they could very well have been real. But this was almost too good to be true.

His feet carried him faster until everything was a blur of cold whipping wind and branches and wayward snowflakes. He ran with the inflamed frenzy of a soldier racing headlong into a battlefield – with one destination in mind – as if his heart would resume its beating if and when he reached it.

As a soldier meets his comrade on the empty field after a battle, Carlisle watched his son rise from the morning shadows to greet him at the crest of the hill. Edward's tall, lanky silhouette was never before such a welcome sight to his father. Carlisle's chest tightened with a burning assault of utter joy, just from watching Edward approach. He had seen this scene hundreds of times, but never had his instinct to draw his arms around the boy been so strong and gripping. He was almost afraid of this reaction, wondering what had caused this moment to be so different from all the rest.

He could only suppose that Esme's passion was scandalously contagious.

The brief thought of Esme waiting inside the house pushed Carlisle into a final sprint to catch up to his son. Edward chuckled knowingly, his throaty laughter a soft but treacherous disturbance to the bleak silence of the snowy woods.

Oh, that sound. Carlisle swore his heart was thumping again as he drew Edward close with both his arms. With ease Carlisle had found where the teenager stood in the dark blue forest, nearly sending him off balance in the piled snow where they embraced.

"You're here," Edward murmured, his voice low and peaceful against his father's shoulder. Carlisle nearly felt tears prickle in the beds of his eyes. He held his son tighter before reluctantly letting him go.

_And Esme... Is she inside? _Carlisle's eyes flickered hastily about the dim wooded area, wondering that her usual eagerness had not brought her bolting out the doorway after Edward.

Edward tipped his head back toward the path that led to the house, and together they rushed down the hill toward the front door. Carlisle had never remembered a time when that front door looked so daunting yet so appealing at once. The need to be inside was bursting within him, the question of what lie behind that doorway tickling his desperation.

Carlisle reached the handle first, and gave it a good turn. Edward's stare was firm upon his father's face as the door swung open, but Carlisle's attention was long gone.

Her bejeweled eyes were the first thing he saw. The sunset was trapped inside her gaze, love boiling like a passionate wildfire beneath those shades of scarlet she so despised. They were flushed with flecks of glistening gold now, even more poignant than he had remembered them being when he'd left her. Had he really missed so much while he was gone?

Her lashes fell and lifted again, opening in slow motion, like soft petals parting in invitation for his gaze. And he gave her his gaze, readily. He gave her everything with one uninterrupted glance.

His eyes lingered on hers, never releasing her as he went about the mundane motions of discarding his coat and scarf. Her slender fingers reached out to take the bag from his hand, and as their fingers brushed over the handle, his chest strained with anger that his skin was still covered in leather gloves, denying him the full flavor of her accidental touch.

He waited patiently for her voice, his ears tingling with the need to hear her speak. He could see the unsaid words manipulating her soft red lips into tiny twists and tentative attempts at murmurs. She was going to speak. He would let her be the first to say the words.

"Welcome home," came the hushed flow of her familiar voice.

He was in heaven.

Not bothering to hide his eagerness, Carlisle tore off the leather gloves from his hands and reached for the woman in front of him.

No, _now _he was in heaven.

Esme's arms were just as eager, her lungs breathing just as heavily against him – the most exquisite evidence of her femininity brushing against his chest with every exhale. The delicate gust of her breath touched his neck, and even _that _felt so loving.

Not one part of her was unimportant in this embrace. He could feel nearly all of her, pressed into him, so _willingly _that it chafed the sturdiness of his own two feet upon the ground. He was fighting to stay upright, to stay strong, to not sob onto her lovely shoulder in ridiculous relief.

She was so impossibly _warm _as she held him, and as he marveled at the sensation in his mind, he had accidentally whispered it aloud. "It's so warm here..."

He felt the tension flow through her small body as he stroked her back with both hands, gently gathering her closer. She let him hold her like that for a few moments before she carefully pulled back to look up at his face, her eyes shining with what Carlisle had selfishly hoped were tears of pure joy.

"I missed you," she breathed.

_How deeply, my beloved? _He ached to ask her, _Have you missed me as fiercely as I have missed you?_

To have this kind of freedom with words was unthinkable, and so Carlisle spoke in half-truths. "I missed you as well, Esme. I missed you both so dearly."

His arms grew rigid around her body, struggling not to crush her despite how tightly he wished to hold her. Esme's eyes sparkled affectionately as she glanced at Edward, and Carlisle could not help but unleash a harmless laugh at the relief that shone in her face. He _had _to have her closer now. She did not realize how her lingering nearness tortured him if he could not feel her, flush against him once again.

Carlisle tugged Esme's hand in suggestion, and to his complete thrill, she _dove_ into his renewed embrace.

It would be so easy, he thought, to never leave this woman's arms again.

Esme was stronger than she gave herself credit for – much stronger. Her grip was unrelenting when she held him now, far tighter than she had ever held to him before. It was intoxicating to feel that hidden strength being unveiled for _him. _He didn't mind at all that she could have easily smothered him with the force. She was welcome to hold him as tightly as she could. He would never refuse even the most painful grasp she could offer. It felt far too good when it came from her.

She had covered his heart in her warmth, her affection pouring out like the wonderful, all-consuming blanket he'd never had to keep him warm every night of his lonely life.

There was never a doubt in his mind that Esme was heaven-sent. She had given him the warmest welcome he had ever known, and just this embrace would have been satisfying enough for him to pass into the afterlife feeling fulfilled.

No matter how many times her hold on him tightened, it seemed her arms always managed to tighten further. The wild yet gentle stirring of her scent, her touch, her strength, her warmth all around him was exhilarating beyond conceivability.

This was nothing words could ever adequately express, but already his hands were aching to brush against empty pages with what he had discovered. He could think of no words now, but he welcomed their absence with an open heart. Because Carlisle knew that when he was reunited with his journal once again, somehow the right words would come to him.

* * *

_**A/N: **__Thank you for reading Carlisle's side of the story. So do you think he has it as bad as Esme? Maybe worse? ;)_


	18. Shepherd or Sheep

**Shepherd or Sheep**

_Here is Carlisle's point of view for Chapter 41 of Stained Glass Soul, in the form of several journal entries._

* * *

_20th December_

I have never known a deeper joy before in my life. How is it that one embrace can hold so much power? I am beaten to the core from just one touch from her, yet I long for it again and again. In the darkest hours of night I wish to look upon her lovely eyes and see my light. In the cold mornings when I must leave the house to gather firewood, I am dreaming only of the warmth of her arms.

She welcomed me into her arms. She wanted me there. Her first words to me were "Welcome home." She called this our home.

Are we truly a family now? Is this a proper word for our coven? Does this, at last, suit our relationship?

The word 'family' belongs to a delicate vocabulary. I perhaps ask too much in this, yet I have truly not asked enough. I believe it is right to call Esme my family. Both she and Edward deserve a family of their own. Do I not deserve this, too, Lord?

I am disgusted with any distance set between us. How can I live properly when a single step away from her feels like a sin? I now find myself following her everywhere she goes. I was once a shepherd; now I am a sheep. I confess it is somewhat exhilarating to be the sheep every now and again. I follow in her lead – so freely I follow. She will look over her shoulder at me with that taunting twinkle in her eyes, and I must wonder if she knows my reasons for following her.

She is so lovely, so light on her feet as she darts from doorway to doorway. She will not settle in one place for a very long time so easily. She is restless where I am restful. I would be perfectly content to sit in one place for hours on end, but she must roam about. How I wish I could somehow keep her in one place.

Sometimes I yearn to ask her, _"Where will you be going next, my dear?" _But what use is this question when my feet are helpless to follow her anyway? I follow Esme as a devoted disciple follows Christ. I can only hope that Christ is the one Esme is following as well.

Oh, my devious, darling Esme. Which of us is the shepherd and which is the sheep?

******-}0{-**

_21st December_

How I wish the snow would return once again to keep me here. Let the blizzard bear down upon this house with a vengeance. Let me be trapped _here _in my home, with the ones I love, rather than caged in the hospital where illness and despondence are the flowering crop.

Since I have returned to her, Esme is always so near to me. We are in one another's presence so often these days. I believe she finds comfort in my company, perhaps as much as I find comfort in having her near. It brings me such joy to see her so content. I am rather surprised that I had not noticed her unease before now.

She still has these habits – these lovely, lovely habits. As I now write, she twists a lock of hair around her finger. She touches it in the way I long to touch it – with tenderness, savoring every silken strand. She does not realize how very blessed she is to touch herself in this way. If she only knew that my fingers grow more envious of hers every moment I watch.

She is wearing a dress of palest violet. I recognize it as one of the very first I brought home to her. I had been blind to the colors of women's clothing back then, having never considered the astounding effect each might have as it framed her ivory skin. I had selected that dress in secret, thinking there was something different about it. Something about that frost-kissed lavender color had touched me. The woman who sold it to me had called it "bewitching." If only she had known the fullness of its spell, being worn by the most beautiful woman in existence. I have never seen Esme wear that dress before now. She had seemed most uncomfortable with it the day I'd brought it home for her. I had wondered if she found the utter beauty of the color offensive. Now I wonder no more. She must have found it as appealing as I had.

Her fingers are lost in the delicate cuffs of lace that hug her elbows. She embraces herself as she sits across from me, and all I can think: how _weak_ is her embrace! She must know that my arms could do so much more to protect her, to warm her, to keep her. She shows no distress, no agony, no grief at being held alone. She appears content that only her arms are wrapped about her own slight frame. This breaks my foolish heart.

Yet to desire that she eye my arms with lust is ever more foolish. I would never wish for her to stare at me in an unholy way...

But there are moments when I catch her staring. She is looking at me – sometimes with wonder, other times with simple happiness. It is in those moments of wonder when I must pause and catch my breath. Her gaze is heady on my flesh. She does not realize how addictive I find the heat of her gaze.

There was a moment when I swore she was looking at the very place on my chest where my heart resides. There was a moment when I swore her stare had lingered on my throat, of all places. I let her watch me swallow once, and she promptly looked away.

So curious, she is. Am I but a frustrating puzzle to her? What does she find in me that holds her eyes so steady, hour after hour as we sit here by the fire?

I wondered this, just a moment ago, and suddenly her eyes were slipping past the places they usually lingered. This time it was not my throat that held her interest, nor my heart.

I was terrified that I had somehow fabricated this illusion in my mind. Her gaze, so heavy, so shameless, had settled below my waist.

And here, I noticed her eyes were not so fast to flicker away. Oh, how they burned me. I knew of her innocence, and yet...I could not bear to move an inch for fear of what might be revealed to her. I knew her stare was fixed on this very journal as it lay in my lap. I have not been taking care to hide it as I once did before. She knows that I write. She must know this.

I do not wish to hide this any longer. Let her know that I write. Let her know I write often.

But let her only guess what it is I am writing about.

******-}0{-**

_22nd December_

I found her in the kitchen last night. Her unpredictability is infuriating as much as it is endearing. How must I keep up with her, day in and day out?

She was baking, of all things. I'll perhaps never know what inspired her to do it, but that was how I found her. She confessed to me that she wished to bring back her childhood memories, and I felt like a villain as she said this. She must know that I am the very reason she cannot remember those times of her life. She must know that her eternal amnesia is my fault, my diagnosis, my failure to cure. She must know these things, yet she never speaks of them. We never speak like that.

She offered the results of her day's worth of labor to me, to take to my patients. I told her that I thought the gesture considerate, though inside I was weeping at her selfless charity. She had no idea how awful I felt, how inadequate that I had no possible way to thank her – not for those two dozen rolls of bread, but for the sheer fact that she _thought _of giving them away for the benefit of people she did not even know.

Esme is so recklessly kind. She is sensitive, sympathetic, sincere. She is everything I long for the world, everything I had yearned for from the day of my birth. My entire life has been spent asking God to grant me these qualities, to help me embody them in places where they are absent. For the first time, in Esme's presence, I am the constant recipient of these qualities. Everything I treasure in a person, I have found in this woman. There is a painfully perfect heart beneath her breast. I want it, selfishly, all for my own.

She did not realize I was thinking so profoundly as I watched her bake in the kitchen that night. She smiled inadequately, and she looked away from my eyes, but there was a warmth to her demeanor that I did not doubt had blossomed in my presence.

She seemed content, I suppose. It is frightfully difficult to decipher one glint from another as it passes her eyes. She often means one thing but says another. She puzzles her poor doctor – _purposefully_, if I might be so bold to presume.

She asked me to help her in the kitchen, and though I knew nothing of croissants and Danish pastry, I agreed without a thought. I turned down her every suggestion to bring Edward's presence into the realm of my indecent thoughts. I felt horrible for doing so, for Esme clearly craved the companionship of my son as much as mine. But she could not know the reason for my rejecting her soft-spoken invitations for his company. We had to be alone for this, because even then I knew my true reason for agreeing to such a silly task.

Yes, Lord, I watched her hands. I watched her hands the entire time.

But are you liable to blame me, my Lord? You are the creator of Esme's hands. You, Lord, are the genius behind this treacherous temptation. Do you enjoy exuding this gentle torment from your throne in heaven? Do you have no wiser duties to tend to? Have you truly set apart a time from your mighty works to watch me fumble along and pine for something I cannot have?

You knew that her fingers would appeal to me. You knew that I would be hypnotized by every little motion, every graceful grasp she exhibited before me. You knew that my mind would wander from this dimly lit kitchen into places that should not be visited. You knew that both our hands would be soiled before this night was through. You knew one temptation would lead to another, and leave us to struggle with soap and water when we were finished with this task.

She washed her hands in the sink, and all I could think of were those times she had let me wash her hands _for_ her. Just one drop of blood on the tip of her finger merited lengthy minutes of methodical scrubbing. How would she react if I were to suddenly reach over and continue the service here and now? Would she give me her hands willingly? Would she allow me to be her servant for this one simple chore? Did she even know how deeply I longed to be a servant for her?

There was something so appealing in this – that I could show her the extent of my diligence, that I could take her hand in mine without any ulterior intentions, simply to feel its softness. I would be thrilled if she were willing to _let _me feel her, and touch her, and clean her. It was all I wanted as I watched her wash her own hands in that sink.

All I could think was how I would do a much more thorough job.

It was no accident that I had allowed our hands to collide. I did touch her, Lord. I touched her – only once, mind you – as she slipped her hands beneath the stream of water for the final time. I cannot explain how, but that water felt ever so warm as our skin made contact. I did not prolong it, though. I allowed only one second for myself to savor this before I broke away.

So you see, I was good, Lord. I was not indulgent when you tempted me. I was swift to abandon that temptation when I saw it. I only took the smallest taste before I let it fade away.

And then, Dear Lord, you in your good glory rewarded me generously for my sacrifice.

Here I must write her precise words, for I fear even my flawless memory is in danger of forgetting their sweet sincerity. _"You are a wonderful doctor," _she said. _"But more than that, you are a wonderful person."_

My Esme, the most wonderful person I have ever known, had deemed _me _worthy of wonder as well. She had nothing to gain from telling me this. She had no reason to promote herself through excessive flattery when it was _I _who owed everything to her. And yet she had said it – something so unnecessarily kind, something with the sole intention of bringing me joy and reassurance. Oh, how long have I waited for one soul to tell me that I was worthy in such an intimate way? How long have I wished, specifically, for Esme's lips to murmur those very words?

You let me hold her again, Lord. You were too kind to me that night. You brought her into my arms; you encouraged her arms to embrace me. I felt her gentle voice run through me, I felt the pressure of her cheek against my heart. I felt her everywhere, and I was at peace. There was no place I desired to be more than right there in her arms.

She cares for me. I know it now, Lord. I have never known anything so well before. Esme cares for me – and though I will not presume she cares as deeply as I do for her, I must take what I have been given with warm and grateful arms.

I thanked Esme for this; I thanked her for everything.

And now in the dusk of the aftermath, I am thanking you, my Lord, for everything.

Whether I am the shepherd or the sheep does not matter to me. I trust in you, as fiercely as I trust in my Esme. I pray that my peace becomes hers, for she deserves every goodness the world has to offer.

* * *

**_A/N_**_: Did you like getting a glimpse into Carlisle's head for each of those moments? I very much enjoyed writing it. Let me know what you think!_


	19. Black Swans and Driftwood Dancers

**Black Swans and Driftwood Dancers**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 42: The Gifts Worth Giving" from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

Carlisle was drifting between a dream and reality as he walked through the woods that morning, everything but his path buried in thick white snow. Every footstep he left in his wake felt like a most reprehensible sin – as if every mark of his foot on the untouched white surface had soiled its beautiful purity. Yet the cold morning welcomed him as he walked onward, having no reason to refuse a pensive young man with so very much to think about. He needed the quiet breath of a swift breeze, the calming chill of still air, the soothing blue silk of the early horizon. Not a single bird would chirp to disturb the wanderings of his mind. Not a single step would follow him as he sought solitude from the world around him. Not a single sound but the notes of his son's talented fingers on a somber grand piano would dare caress his ears.

Carlisle needed his morning walk to renew both mind and body. It was a common misconception among his counterparts that he was out here to pray. But so rarely did he submit his mind to matters of a spiritual essence. No, this was purely a time of self-reflection, of everything _but _Godly matters. This was his time to dwell on those thoughts that would not have been acceptable to dwell on during the brighter hours of the day.

As he passed through the garden, his thoughts at last found their relief. Where the plants once grew in impressive green clumps of foliage around the fence, there were now only several sad brown twigs peeking out from smooth white waves. The frost had raped the flowers until they were nothing but crushed petals fossilized in the snow. The iron gate had even turned a drab shade of blue from the chill.

The doctor's hand was cautious as he opened it, as if he feared it would break into brittle bits at the slightest touch. He welcomed himself into the tragic scene, oddly comforted by the memories of Esme's enthusiastic plans for the garden in the springtime. His eyes reverently recalled the places she had pointed out to him; where her gardenias would bloom and her fountain would shine brilliantly under the summer moon. He was confident that Esme could have made this garden into a vision from a dream.

Carlisle found himself under the spell of her presence though she was nowhere near. His footsteps became less sure in their direction as he made his way down the familiar winding path. A cherub with chipped wings glanced sympathetically at him from behind a bank of snow. A servant girl wept tears of ice as she bore the weight of a hollow vase upon her shoulder. And the pair of entwined lovers continued their endless display of passion, though the woman now peered up at her partner from behind a veil of frost. They could not kiss, but their gazes were always locked. Even having been fashioned from marble, their eyes held more feeling than should have been possible... Or perhaps this was all in his imagination.

An unpleasantly rich quiver of loneliness seized his chest as he turned his eyes away from the frozen couple. Somehow, Carlisle could not let go of his fear that Esme, too, was hiding behind a veil of ice.

Suddenly the scene around him did not seem so soothing and peaceful. It was dreary, dark, cold, and disheartening. He tried to see it differently, tried to bring more warmth into the frozen wasteland. If he tried very hard, he could envision the snow as crystal white sand. The edge of brightness on a chilling blue sky became an unreachable ocean beyond the horizon.

For a moment, his mind was enough to fool him. For a moment, he felt warmth.

As he walked along the shores of a frozen white beach, he came across a familiar looking piece of wood in the drift.

"La Donna del Mare," he murmured into the silence. His eyes fell closed as he relived the maudlin memory of the Mediterranean. Lifting the lowly piece of wood from its entrapment, he brushed away the snow and splinters with a tender hand and held it up for his studious eye.

An eerie stream of half-remembered flashbacks flowed through Carlisle's subconscious as he turned the unremarkable chunk of wood over in his hand. In his mind he saw the hands of another, shaping the wood into a pious symbol of sacrifice. The chafed, calloused hands of his father commanded nature to take form as he pleased. Pastor Cullen played God in the workshop – and all the while his son had watched from the corner, wishing to learn the art so that he, too, could play a part in creation.

As Carlisle blinked back the memories, he found his grip on the misshapen wood, tight with resolve. His father had always carved something for the season of Advent. It had seemed only right that the tradition should be continued.

It had been so long since Carlisle had carved something. The wine cellar was filled with the unbound creations of his overactive mind. There had been a time when he'd had no place to put them all, when he had preferred to keep them everywhere around the house for company. Then Edward came along and made him realize just how eccentric a habit this was.

Carlisle smiled distantly as he remembered the room full of unfinished sculptures in the cellar. Would it be so harmful to add just one more to the mess?

The artistic urge was awfully hard to tamp down once it had taken hold of him. Carlisle understood well what Esme felt when she had the desire to paint. He had never imagined that feeling would return with such strength in his heart.

Esme had been the cause of it; he was certain.

She was the cause of everything.

Holding the block of tree bark beneath his arm as if it were made of gold, Carlisle rushed back to the cellar door to retrieve his old carving tools. His mind was churning with so many ideas for what he could carve from that piece of wood, he did not even notice that he was now being followed.

His breath was heavy by the time he reached the haven of the open shed. Between the open doors, he dragged out the dusty old work bench and placed the wooden block down on the surface, turning it for a better view.

From one angle, the shadows were dark and looming, giving the piece of wood a sly, ominous potential. When turned upside-down it looked sinister and twisted. But when the light of the lantern hit it just so on its side, gentle and calm, it looked almost like a sleeping child.

So many facets to just one unassuming piece of wood.

He was so absorbed in studying the gorgeous imperfections and subtleties of the untouched artwork that the growing scent of another vampire seemed inconsequential at first. Carlisle could sense that he was being approached by another soul – there was a warmth in the cold winter air that awakened his senses in the gentlest of ways. By the time that familiar scent had grown too strong to ignore, it was too late for him to prepare himself.

The sounds of crushed snow had never sounded so beautiful.

He tipped his head up, allowing his eyes to settle upon the vision that now stood before him. Her curious eyes blinked back at him, her lips slightly open in faint surprise. Her stance was so tentative, as if she were ready to dart away in fright should he chide her for intruding.

The wind danced between them, slipping beneath his sleeves to send chills up his arms and down his chest. He suddenly felt very exposed, comparing his casual, loose-fitting clothes to Esme's borrowed jacket and thick snow boots. The feeling of such exposure was indecently pleasant when her eyes were free to roam his bare skin. The cold was nonexistent so long as her gaze was ripe upon his flesh.

Eager not to let the silence drag on for too long, Carlisle explained himself before she had to ask. "Every year during Advent I carve something. It was a tradition my father kept in our church." He twisted the carving tool in his right hand out of nerves, trying in vain to keep it from gravitating toward his right hip as it naturally seemed to do.

"The cross in your study?" her gentle voice inquired.

Carlisle's arm stilled its motions at once as he looked up in shock. Returning from a twelve day absence had made him ever more aware of the power of her scent. The lingering sweetness of Esme's presence in his most sacred room had certainly not gone unnoticed.

Would she so readily admit to her sneaking around in his study while he had been gone?

He didn't think so.

"How do you know about that?" he challenged, a long-dead pulse disrupting his heart as he awaited her answer.

She seemed somewhat stunned by his question, and for a moment he worried that his suspicion had been too plain. His intention had not been to frighten her, but he could not deny that a part of him enjoyed seeing Esme squirm a bit as he stared at her, expecting a reply.

"Edward told me about the cross your father carved," she recovered smoothly, looking down at her hands with a shrug. "He said it was something you prefer to keep…hidden."

Carlisle glared down at the shapeless piece of wood between his hands, sighing. While he doubted his son would ever share this secret with Esme, he was not disappointed that it was now out in the open. To Carlisle, it seemed that everyone around him was trying to dissect his soul and free its contents for all to see, but his need to resist them had diminished greatly of late. As he had recently discovered, sharing such secrets could even be appealing.

With a surge of trust, Carlisle confessed to Esme. "I keep it hidden because it reminds me of a time I often wish to forget; not because of what it symbolizes. What it symbolizes is beautiful." His fingers played idly with the curled shavings of wood, encouraging the wind to come and chase them away.

"Maybe you should bring it out of hiding, then," she offered.

His eyes closed as he considered her quiet suggestion. A calming breeze of cold air at last scattered the sawdust, creating a tiny sandstorm around his unfinished sculpture. He let the wind caress his face, imagining a world where he would no longer need to hide to feel safe. The pressure of Esme's gaze made him warm, and as he opened his eyes again, he repeated the thought in a shadow of a voice. "Out of hiding."

"I would like to see it sometime," she said. He could never argue such a hopeful, sweet voice, yet a part of him still resisted.

"It is a very...personal piece to me."

She seemed to recoil at his words, whispering in apology. "I understand."

The regret that burned within him was excruciating. Her request had been innocent enough – she did not deserve to be cast aside for expressing an interest in seeing a simple sculpture. His insecurity was irrational, and it was his to conquer.

"I will show it to you," he told her, burying the reluctance in his tone. "If that is what you wish."

But when he saw Esme smile, he wondered why he had ever been reluctant in the first place.

His ears were coated in her velvet murmur. "I would like that very much."

"You may not find it as fascinating as you think," he told her sheepishly.

"I'll never know until I've seen it," she said with a soft smile. "But you don't have to show me anything you do not want to."

Her sensitivity was forever astounding to him. He did not deserve it.

"No," he refuted more firmly, looking up to meet her eyes. "I _should_ show you more. You deserve to see more, to knowmore about me... You deserve that." The intense quiet that followed his words was beautifully insufferable.

Her eyes seemed troubled by his words at first, but as he allowed himself to look closer, he could see that something like a swollen flame was trembling just inside the depths of her gaze.

"You're hardly a stranger to me, Carlisle," she sighed, the dimple on the corner of her mouth blinking affectionately, "but I would not mind knowing you more…closely."

He breathed heavily as her appealing proposition stirred inside of him. He should have been trembling from the cold, but instead he was searing with the warmth that flowered from her intense gaze. She wanted to know _him_ more closely. How many people in his life had ever wanted this?

Too few.

The excitement Carlisle felt at hearing her words was crippling. But his mind was suddenly racing too fast to settle appropriate consent. He wanted to offer Esme what she asked for, right here and right now. But words seemed to be at the bidding of God alone, and Carlisle had no power over the question that surged forth, uninvited, from his suddenly dry lips. "Why did you come out here?"

Her mouth parted as it always did, before the words could escape. She looked so delightfully helpless like that – her eyes wide and glassy, her hands twisting together beneath the sleeves of her coat.

"I—I wondered why you were outside. It's so cold, Carlisle," she said with a delicate shiver. "Why don't you do that inside?"

The offer was most certainly appealing, but he could not take her up on it.

He shook his head, enjoying the way Esme's eyes furrowed in pity at his refusal.

"My father always carved outside in the winter, no matter how cold it was." Carlisle smirked as he remembered the precise words being uttered in his father's wise voice. "He said it strengthened the soul."

Carlisle did not notice the intensity of the innocent euphemism until he saw Esme's eyes grow wider yet, her hands stilled beneath her sleeves, and her lips snapped closed.

_Strengthen the soul? _What business did the son of a priest have using such a bold phrase in the presence of a young lady?

Thankfully, Esme had saved him from having to further explain himself. "Can I at least bring you another lantern?" she asked, motioning to the dim orange jar hanging from the shed door. "The light seems somewhat insufficient out here."

"Thank you, but it won't be necessary," he said with a dismissive shake of his head, bending low over the table to disguise the anxiety in his eyes. "I'll be leaving for the hospital in ten minutes anyway."

"Oh."

Lord, just that one tiny word from her lips was like a dove calling out to him in the peaceful silence of morning. It was like that first edge of the shoreline when he was lost at sea. Like the first timid ray of sunlight after a ferocious storm.

He knew that she now watched him intently as he worked to chisel away at the wooden block on the table. Esme's natural curiosity had a way of making Carlisle feel terribly interesting, and that feeling was addictive. He could sense the strength of her gaze as it wavered between his hands and the wood. He did not even have to glance up to know that her eyes were wide, and her breathing was perfectly even. She was in a trance when given something to watch – most especially when the activity she watched had to do with art.

He wondered how Esme saw him as he worked. Selfishly, Carlisle hoped to show her just how capable of creating art he could be. She was quiet and perhaps even pensive, her silence overpowering to his ego as he assumed she was politely enthralled by his every action.

She was watching _him_, was she not? She was watching...his hands.

Did his dear Esme wonder how these hands would handle other forms of art? Did she know that _her body_ was the highest form of art in her doctor's mind? Was it so obvious to her that the more closely he came to know that lovely piece of wood, the more he felt her curves taking shape against his will?

He had intended to shape this piece of wood into a child... not a woman.

Yet, like everything else, it was becoming her. Esme.

Helplessly, Carlisle's eyes drifted away from the work of his hands to crawl up the body of the woman who had served as his unwitting inspiration. Her feet were drawn together in the snow, as closely as they could be while stuffed into those unflattering black boots that she had borrowed from his son. She was just as dwarfed by Edward's coat, yet she appeared slender and feminine, even half-swallowed by the heaping black wool.

She had clearly thrown on the nearest necessities before following him out into the cold. She was as unprepared and unconcerned with her appearance as she could be, yet she had never looked more lovely.

Her beauty was effortless.

"I'm sorry. Do you prefer to be alone when you're…"

The beginnings of her concerned apology snapped Carlisle back to life. "No—no, I appreciate you coming out here," he said hastily, hiding the intimidating hand-tool behind his leg as he straightened up. "Even if it was just out of curiosity." He smiled brightly at her, discovering yet again how helpless a reflex it was while in her presence.

She shivered again, and he thought of asking her to come inside the shed where she could watch him finish _ten thousand _carvings. Such a pity it was that his shift at the hospital began in less than half an hour.

"But you should go back inside, Esme," he told her, enduring the horrid sting of having to dismiss her so casually. "This cold can't be pleasant for you."

"I don't mind it," she refuted immediately.

He smiled knowingly, emboldened by her eagerness to stay.

"Esme?"

She tipped her head, her eyes catching the light in just the right way.

"Go inside." He had not intended for the order to be whispered, but his breath was already gone by the time he had chosen to speak.

Her eyes lowered with a strange little twinkle as she consented. "Alright."

There was something very pleasing about the fact that she had kept her feet within in his footprints as she walked back to the house in the snow.

She looked over her shoulder as she turned the corner, and he did not consider it tragic that she most certainly saw his smile. As soon as she was out of sight, Carlisle gathered up his tools and the unfinished block of wood and carried them back to the open cellar. He knew he should have locked the doors before leaving, and it would have been a wise idea to extinguish the lantern as well, but he was too eager to find Esme waiting for him when he went back inside the house.

He skipped over all three porch steps and pushed open the front door to find her carrying his coat, bag, and the sack full of baked goods from the night before. A frigid blast of wind from the open door sent her long tawny locks fluttering around her shoulders as she stepped towards him. Botticelli's _Birth of Venus_ came to mind...

"I'll be back down in a moment," he told her as he shut the door behind him. "I'm just going to change."

He did not wait for her to nod before he climbed the stairs, again only allowing his feet to touch every other step on the way up. He felt the need to move somewhat faster this morning.

Carlisle hastily made his way through the hall, closing himself into the very last bedroom to change his clothes. His movements slowed just the tiniest bit as he freed himself from his shirt and trousers, shamelessly hoping that Esme might have cared enough to listen.

He pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and snapped his belt into place around his waist, not bothering for a second look in the mirror before he closed the door to his wardrobe. Each vest and sweater in his closet was left untouched. He felt more comfortable around Esme now, enough that he did not feel the need to be fully covered in her presence.

It was perhaps a bold intuition on his part, but as he descended the stairs two at a time, Carlisle found that Esme's appreciative stare was worth the sacrifice.

He stopped in front of the closet to don his lab coat before accepting the bags and overcoat from Esme's offering hands.

"Take care of yourself," she said softly. It was like hearing a prayer that he was not meant to hear. It had sounded like a slip, like something she had absolutely not intended to whisper out loud.

"Always," he said with a small smile. The low tone of her voice was contagious. "And you'd be well-advised to do the same...won't you?"

She nodded, her eyes wide open and inviting.

There were many ways Carlisle could have interpreted Esme's unspoken invitation, but he of course chose the most audacious of all.

She was standing alone, yet she was so close to him that it seemed like a sin not to rectify her solitude. So he reached out and welcomed her into his arms.

His hand snaked around to her back, finding that sweet spot just above the tempting curve of her spine. He was careful not to move from that place as he gave her a gentle nudge, inviting her closer. She did not hold him as tightly as he had hoped, but just before he let go, he felt her hand reaching up for his shoulder.

This feeling was so delectable, this feeling of her reaching forhim. Carlisle would have moved mountains to feel that every day for eternity. If just her hand on his shoulder could bury his heart in fire, he was deathly frightened to guess what would happen if she were to offer much more than that...

It was not a long embrace, but time took on a peculiar pace when they touched. The seconds were not slow, but they were extended somehow; heightened so that he might adjust to the sensations that were bludgeoning him from all sides. He felt everything, from the building pressure of his hand on her lower back, to her quick little breaths on the base of his neck. This feeling of being _connected _was an utter luxury - so much that he felt greedy just to be enjoying it.

The feeling was mostly wonderful. Mostly wholesome. Mostly perfect. But there was a fine, tiny prickle of guilt beating against his heart as he tried to hold Esme tighter. To keep that guilt from consuming him, he had to let her go.

"I'll see you when I come back." His voice had reached the lowest register possible, and it was entirely inappropriate. It was too close, too soft-spoken, too...everything.

But it felt so right.

It was surely his swollen ego that made him believe he felt her leaning into him before he could release her from his arms. But Carlisle did not imagine that her fingers were reluctant to release their grasp on his sleeve.

Even the thought was enough to make him smile as he let her go.

He murmured "Farewell," because he knew it amused her more than the more traditional "Goodbye."

The last thing he saw before he closed the door was the reflection of his hopelessly smitten smile shining in her eyes.

******-}0{-**

The hospital was calm that morning. Carlisle was grateful for the uneventful week that had followed the mayhem of the blizzard. His patients were cooperative and his colleagues were pleasant. There was only one stubborn hitch in his all too perfect schedule.

Since he had unceremoniously declined a promotion to Chief of Surgery, Carlisle had been putting forth grand efforts to avoid Catherine Martin in the halls of the emergency ward.

Occasionally, a stray glance from the young woman had proved unavoidable, and he bravely endured her heavy expressions of sorrow when they were forced to share a patient.

The tension between the doctor and his nurse was undeniable to those who witnessed. It must have been blatant enough to frighten a few aides away before they could offer any more assistance. Carlisle remained dutifully focused on his work, though his absent behavior came at the expense of appearing cold to the young woman who clearly wanted his attention.

There was a certain strain of intimacy that came with tending to a patient together. They were working together to bring life back into a man who was on the verge of death. And they were currently the only ones in the room with him.

"Doctor Cullen," Nurse Catherine's timid voice broke the silence.

Carlisle stared down pleadingly at the sleeping man in bed, as if begging for help from the conversation he feared would be unavoidable.

"Yes?" he whispered without looking back at her.

"There's something I've been meaning to tell you," she said, her voice nearing him from behind. "Can we please talk?"

He had to think up an excuse, and quickly.

Turning too fast to meet her eyes, Carlisle snatched up his patient's charts and headed for the door.

"I'm very sorry, Catherine, I have a meeting in just—"

"Carlisle." She had spoken his first name – forcefully – a most unthinkable approach from someone whose position was significantly lower on the hierarchy.

Carlisle had heard his name spoken in so few voices throughout the years, even less from the throat of a female. The slight voice of a human girl was the most achingly sweet of all. It reminded him of Annaliese...

He turned to the nurse with a look of pity, entirely forgiving of her boldness though she had clearly been expecting a reprimand of some kind for speaking out of place.

"Will you please just listen to what I have to say?" Her small round face tested his control with a fierce flush as he attentively fixed his gaze on hers.

"I am listening." His voice was small, almost frightened.

Catherine shifted her feet anxiously, looking as if she were about to step forward, but instead she took a short step back.

"Why are you so...avoidant all of the time?"

Carlisle was not easily affected by the way many people spoke to him, but the gall in this girl's tone was surprisingly offensive to him.

"I beg your pardon, but I don't believe that is an appropriate assumption to make," he said forwardly. "You are hardly aware of what my home life is like. You have no reason to assume that I am avoiding anyone."

Carlisle could only guess that his attempts at coming off as stern had failed, for she seemed entirely unfazed by his emphasized words.

"On the contrary, I can see that you are clearly avoiding _me,_" she retorted.

He froze.

Burying a single hand in her light brown hair, Catherine tilted her head back, her eyes begging for mercy. "Will you please at least tell me what I have done to offend you?"

Carlisle heaved a sigh. He was going nowhere fast. "You have not offended me in any way, my dear."

Her alarmingly blue eyes snapped onto his, glistening ungratefully under thin, narrowed brows. "Why do you do that?"

"I'm...sorry?"

"Why do you patronize me as if I were a child?" she demanded, the flush building furiously upon her cheeks. "I believe we are fairly close in age, Doctor Cullen. There is no need to use sugared terms of endearment with me." Her arms crossed vehemently across the front of her blouse, but not after she brought a quick hand up to swipe the first stubborn tears from beneath her eye.

If there was one worldly sight that would bring Carlisle straight to his knees, it was a woman in tears. "Catherine, I—"

"You know that I have feelings for you," she whispered.

Her sudden and unexpected words sent a siege of splinters to his chest. To be rendered speechless while in the emergency room was indeed a first for the doctor.

"Wh—"

"Everyone knows. Everyone in this hospital seems to think we should be together." She shook her head in heartbroken disbelief, her blue eyes further brightened by luscious tears. "Everyone but _you._"

Dear Lord, this was exactly what he had hoped it _wouldn't_ come to.

Carlisle slapped the stack of charts down on the table in frustration, thinking it would make a more convincing reaction for a man who had been caught in a stressful situation.

"Oh, Catherine, I'm not... It's only that—" His nose stung with the scent of salt as he heard her give a sobbing little gasp. He stepped forward, panicked. "I wish there were some way for me to explain..."

Her eyes were searching his face frantically, silently pleading for him to put an end to her misery. As much as it pained him to do it, Carlisle knew he had to lie to keep from shattering the poor girl's heart.

Taking a deep breath, he began in a low voice, "I know that you will think me a foolish coward for saying this, but the truth is... I have no interest..."

Her eyes widened hopefully as she pressed him on. "Interest in...?"

"A relationship...with a woman." Realizing what the words alone implied, Carlisle quickly added, "Romance. Commitment." He gave a small, sheepish laugh for good measure. "I'm simply not designed for these things." He saw her about to protest and he quelled her with a shake of his head. "Trust me."

Her lower lip continued to quiver as she stared up at him in utter doubt. "I don't believe you."

Carlisle held back a wince as he settled to explain himself as vaguely as possible. "Catherine, I live alone with my orphaned nephew in an abandoned estate out of town. I am addicted to my work. I rarely go out." He smirked lightly. "I am a hermit at just 28 years of age."

She seemed reluctant to display relief, the tears still pooling in her eyes as her gaze swept along his face. It pained Carlisle to see her looking so vulnerable. Just this once he decided a little physical contact couldn't hurt.

He took one step closer to lift a single finger to her cheek. The heat of her skin raced through him at the touch, as a stray teardrop melted on his ice cold fingertip.

"You're a wonderful and very kind young woman," he told her, trying in vain not to make the words sound too intimate. "One of the loveliest I've known. You must know how it has pained me to turn away from you all this time. I never meant to hurt you." Her eyes closed as he withdrew his fingers. "You deserve a good man."

She sniffled a bit before glancing up at him warily. "Would it be despicable of me to say you're the best man I've known?"

Carlisle shook his head, allowing the hint of a smile to cross his lips. "Would it be despicable of me to say you must lead a very sheltered life?"

As he was hoping, she let out a begrudging laugh between sobs.

"You have an incredibly caring heart," he told her, poignant truth written in his eyes. "Very few men will be able to resist that."

She winced humbly at his generous compliment and sighed as her eyes lifted to meet his.

"My feelings for you may not change straight away," she murmured darkly.

Carlisle swallowed hard, unable to think of a response to her hollow warning.

As if to ease his fears, her eyes suddenly softened. "But I want you to know that if you should ever need anything...if you ever _do_ reconsider..." She paused, looking away in embarrassment, her voice almost too low to make out. "I will be here for you."

Touched by her tender words, Carlisle smiled sadly as he brushed away the last tear from her chin. Catherine turned her head up in wonder, her lips trembling.

"Your fingers are so cold."

He held back a wince. "I'm sorry."

Immediately, Carlisle tried to withdraw his fingers. But to his surprise, she gently pulled his hand back to hold it against her cheek. He could not deny how delightful a true human's heat was. It was something neither Esme nor Edward could offer him in the physical sense, and Carlisle would have been a fool not to drink in the remarkable sensation while he was given the chance.

"Are you _ever _warm?" Catherine asked pityingly.

_Only when Esme is near..._

"In the summer," he whispered with a redeeming smile.

He was immensely relieved to see her lips turn up at his teasing reply. Catherine patiently wiped the last tears away from her puffy red eyes before pressing his hand back against his chest.

"Thank you."

And for the first time in an achingly long week, Carlisle felt free.

******-}0{-**

Though his situation at the hospital seemed to be looking rather bright, Carlisle felt a tension rising as he headed back home at the end of the day. He had promised to show Esme his father's cross, and somehow this wore greatly on his nerves.

He had made efforts to hide this part of his past, and now Esme wanted to see it. Carlisle was in no way against showing her these things, but he did often worry over how Esme would receive his secrets.

It was best to do it as soon as possible.

The moment Carlisle came through the front door, he shrugged off his coats and called for Esme. She was already there, at the top of the stairs, no doubt awaiting his arrival.

Her eagerness at what he was about to show her only fueled the fire of his anxiety.

He led her into the study with tentative footsteps, her breath hardening in the dark as they entered the dimly lit room together. He paused when he reached the curtain that hid his cross, bending down slowly to draw back the velvet fabric.

He lifted the wooden cross out of the shadows to place it on his shoulder – the irony of the profound gesture was not lost on him – and he carried it across the room to place it in the window. It left behind a tender burn on his shoulder where it had rested.

He brushed his hands against each other to rub the dust away before stepping back to stand at Esme's side.

Her eyes were fixated on the simple wooden cross as if it were something astounding. It had no gilded edges or elaborate carvings, yet Esme looked upon it with such reverence that Carlisle wondered if she were in fact staring at something else in her mind.

"How could you think I would not find this fascinating?" she murmured in awe. "Carlisle...it's stunning."

He immediately refuted, "You say that because of its age."

"No, not at all," she shook her head. "I say that because of its...presence." She smiled distantly, turning to point to the top of the fireplace where he kept his religious icons. "You should keep it above the mantel, right beside the painting of the Madonna and child."

For a moment he tried to imagine it. "Do you think so?"

"Why should it be kept in hiding?" she challenged, her voice temptingly soft.

As Esme looked up to meet his gaze, she seemed unable to look away. Her stare was aggressive, but in a most deliciously gentle way. Carlisle wondered if Esme knew just how torturous a thing her gaze was for a sensitive man to endure.

Smiling kindly, she brought her hand up to his shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze.

She let go too soon.

"I think it looks very nice in the window as well," she remarked.

He pursed his lips, turning back to consider the area in question. "It's a bit cluttered over there already, don't you think?"

Esme lifted a finger to her chin as she approached the crowded window sill, studying his collection of maquettes. Without hesitation, she picked up the white plaster swan – somehow he knew that would be the one to catch her eye. He smiled to himself as she turned it over curiously in her hands.

"Tell me more about _your_ sculptures," she demanded in the loveliest manner.

Carlisle felt an immediate heat rise around his neck. "Edward showed you the wine cellar didn't he?"

A sly smile twisted on her lips, causing his chest to tighten uncomfortably. "I've never seen a more well-furnished room."

Bashfully, he forced a quiet laugh.

"Where did you learn to make such exquisite artwork?" she asked, her expression so fascinated he could hardly bear it. She began to stroke the slender white neck of the swan in her hand as she awaited his answer, and the perfectly innocent sight was elaborated indecently in his mind. To protect his own honor, Carlisle looked away.

With a humble shrug, he shook his head. "I used to watch my father as a child. I abandoned craftwork when I was in my twenties and then..." He paused as he came up to his desk to open the drawer. "One day while walking on the shores of the Mediterranean, I picked up a piece of driftwood. I took it home with me and carved it into this..." He lifted his most treasured piece out from its hiding place, presenting it to Esme with careful hands. One look at that piece of driftwood, and Carlisle's memories were reeling with the scent of sea salt and the feel of warm ocean wind.

"I called her '_La Donna del Mare_,'" he whispered reminiscently. "The maid of the sea."

Esme's fingers never before looked more delicate as she reached forward to touch the artwork. "She's beautiful," she whispered, her sincerity palpable in the way she felt the carving from head to foot. "Was she...someone you knew?"

Carlisle had to hold in an ironic laugh. Esme had no idea just how tragically few women he had known well enough to have considered making them into works of art. He decided it was better to keep the precise number a mystery.

"No, no... Just a wayward wanderer of my imagination," he sighed, letting his fingers graze the tendrils of dark wooden hair. "After that I couldn't stop," he said as he held the lovely piece of driftwood closer. "Many of the works you saw in the cellar are ages old. They've accumulated rather rapidly over time." He grinned teasingly as he caught Esme's eye. "I look forward to the same being the case with your paintings."

Her fingers tangled slightly in her hair as was her habit when trying to be humble. "Oh, I don't know about that."

"You'd be a fool to break the tradition, Esme," he said with a laugh. "You'll have your paintings, I shall have my sculptures, and our Edward shall have his masterpiece compositions. We'll scarcely be able to fit ourselves into one house."

Only when he'd said it out loud did Carlisle realize how appealing the description of such a household could be.

Esme laughed heartily, and he felt so terribly _whole_ because of the captivating sound. "I've always dreamed of immersing myself in artwork," she admitted, a jubilant glimmer in her eye.

_I've always dreamed of immersing myself in you..._ his mind languidly reiterated.

But the words he said out loud were far more profound. "To immerse oneself in anything is often denied by the rest of the world."

Carlisle could see the sparkle wavering in Esme's scarlet-studded gaze – it was a sign that their conversation was about to become a little more interesting. He predicted a lofty, philosophical question would find its way past her lips. Sure enough, he was right.

"Don't you sometimes wish the rest of the world would disappear?"

"Ah...I know this fantasy," he murmured wisely. "What you speak of is the eternal dimension. Escaping from the tangible existence. Socrates would consider this to be what lay beyond _the Cave_."

"Not allegorically," she shook her head, her eyes all but searing him. "...physically," she finished in a dark whisper.

Every dip and curve of her face he had since memorized was made even more appealing in the flickering lights of the candles. By God, this woman wanted answers to such impossible questions! Any man who dared to humor her would be forever damned to ponder and theorize and calculate until his mind was sore.

"Do you mean that the world would simply melt around us, leaving us behind...all alone?" Carlisle asked suggestively, inching his way closer to where she stood.

Her voice was despicably weak as she replied, "Something like that."

He could not tame the masochistic grin that found its way to his face. "Perhaps _we_ would be the ones to disappear _from_ the world."

_Oh, it was just so entertaining a thing to speculate..._

To his surprise, Esme nearly giggled, biting her lip to keep the gorgeous sounds from escaping.

Clearly the moment had not been as heated as he'd thought it was.

Sighing in remission, Carlisle pointed to the swan Esme still cradled in her hands. "You like this one?"

"Oh. Yes." She struggled a bit as she turned her attention back to the plaster piece, her eyes furrowing in distress as tiny white flakes chipped away from its wings. "I'm sorry, I seem to be—"

"It's all right," he assured her, trying again not to laugh, "that's just a maquette. It's not a finished piece."

She wrinkled her brow. "A _maquette_?"

"What you might compare to a 'blueprint' or a 'primary sketch'," he explained. "It is a model for the sculpture yet to be constructed." He casually tickled the wing of the swan, encouraging more white flakes to fall. "It's made of plaster, so it's still a bit soft."

Glancing to the crowded window, Esme asked, "Then none of these are finished?"

He smiled at her surprised expression. "No. They're just plans. I might not even bother to make some of them."

"You have so many!" she laughed, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Oh, but this is nothing, Esme. The man who first invented the maquette had a whole room _full_ of them! All across the window sills, and on every shelf, and all over the floors..." Carlisle gestured animatedly with his hands as he paced before the window, suddenly eager to share what he knew about an art form with which Esme was unfamiliar.

"That sounds so wonderful," she said quietly.

"I used to dream of doing the same," he told her, wondering if she could tell that he was revealing a deep secret. "I would fill my entire home with sculptures of all sorts of things – everything imaginable – animals and people and buildings... And maybe then, I thought, I wouldn't feel so alone." His voice drifted away sadly as he stared at each of his beloved maquettes in turn. Each was unique, each had personality, each had been crafted with the sole intention of filling an emptiness that resided in a lonely man's heart.

"You're not alone anymore," Esme whispered, somehow reading perfectly what she had seen behind his eyes. Her words could not have felt more warm.

Carlisle carefully placed _La Donna_ onto his desk, laying her on her back so that her empty wooden eyes stared up at him.

"You don't need sculptures covering every surface to fill the void," Esme reminded, her voice full and fervent.

"There _is_ no void any longer," Carlisle assured in a fierce whisper, dangerously close to devouring the sunset gleam in her eyes. He swallowed as he pulled his gaze down to the plaster swan that lay contentedly between her hands. Her fingers had been stroking it the entire time, as if it were real and it needed her attention to feel safe. It was one of the reasons he loved Esme. In her eyes, everything deserved to be cared for. Everything, including him.

He smiled fondly and asked, "Would you like to adopt it?"

"Oh, I couldn't." She shook her head, reaching over to place the swan down beside the driftwood dancer on his desk. "You'll be needing it, won't you?"

Before she could place the piece down, he cupped one hand around the side of the swan and gently pushed it back into her grip. "Trust me, I won't miss it."

Her doe-like eyes lifted to his, looking far too doubtful. He knew then that he would not let her leave his study unless she held that swan in her hands.

"Take it," he insisted. The words felt too wonderful when he said them to Esme. She just didn't understand how badly he _wanted _to give to her. He _wanted _her to take everything he could give. This was a violent _need._ The more he gave of himself, the more complete he felt.

"You can...paint it," he suggested, hoping something would spark her interest to take it.

"But it's already such a nice white color," she demurred. Meanwhile, the passion in her eyes was overflowing so profusely it was unthinkable for her to refuse.

_Oh, Lord... Please, Esme, take it..._

It was unbearable to look into her eyes as they stood so close, their hands both fastened on the innocent white swan – both pushing gently in the opposite direction, both refusing to be the one who kept it, both needing to _give._

The moment was so free from guile, so perfectly ideal for one of them to simply lean forward and join their lips. Esme's eyes were so breathtakingly honest as she gazed up at him from beneath a cloak of candlelight. Carlisle's heart was already purring in encouragement...

As usual it was Edward who saved them.

"There _are_ black swans in the world, you know."

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ So there you have it _– _everything Carlisle was thinking during the sea of tension. :) _

_Writing this chapter from his perspective also gave me a chance to bring some peace to his situation with the lovesick Nurse Catherine. I thought it would be interesting to explore how Carlisle might have turned down a human woman who had feelings for him. It was obviously something he must have done at least once or twice during his years as a doctor, and I was glad to have a way to work that into my story. _


	20. The Missing Memory

**The Missing Memory**

_I had originally written a much longer version of Esme and Doctor Cullen's first meeting, but when I posted Chapter 2: Healed and Gone, I wanted it to have a more fuzzy, distant feel with not too much direct dialogue, because it was something of a fleeting instant in Esme's childhood. I felt it was appropriate to add the rest of their time together here as a complementary chapter since the music box in Chapter 43 would have reawakened some old memories of when they first met. _

_Here is the continuation of Esme's memory in "Chapter 2: Healed and Gone" of Stained Glass Soul. _

* * *

When Esme finally collected the courage to look down, her leg was no longer twisted in sickly deformity. She cocked her head, with a swipe to her puffy pink eyes, and gazed fondly down at the leg she used to know.

Her doctor had fixed her.

The tears pooling in Esme's swollen eyes melted slowly down her cheeks and she tasted salt between her lips.

"I'm so sorry, dear." His accent was decadent. "I know it is very painful."

She bit her lower lip with the last effort to be brave, looking up to him questioningly. Her doctor smiled sadly but sweetly down at her in a way that would have made Prince Charming look like a filthy swine.

"If you feel you're ready, I can wrap your leg now so the bones will heal straight."

Persuasive wasn't even the word. Spellbinding. And yes, she admitted to herself, his voice was entirely...seductive.

Esme nodded without a word, without a choice.

He gauged her expression carefully, his eyes like candlelit honey, smoldering with delectable intimacy. Before she realized what was happening, he had slid his chair until it was inches from the couch, his legs pressed against the cushion where she lay. Without warning, he took her foot carefully into both his hands and slowly transferred the weight of her entire leg to lie across his knees.

"Tell me if I hurt you," he reminded breathily.

_Quite the contrary. _

To Esme, the feeling of her bare leg lying limply on a man's sturdy knees, so very close to his lap, was sinfully distracting. With a great deal of God's help, Esme stilled the rushing pace of her lungs as the doctor reached across her head to gather the ring of bandages.

"You should consider yourself fortunate that the break was clean."

She had no clue what he was saying, but that did not matter. His hands were soon at work, diligent and certain in their every swift motion, curling about her foot as though it were the most delicate thing he had ever held. Every brush of his fingers against her skin sent sweet little chills all up and down her leg.

She whimpered a bit at the occasional sting of pain, whose devious plot was to invade the doctor's pleasant touch. And no matter how pleasant it was, his fingers were making her frightfully cold.

"Are you all right?" he whispered in concern.

Esme blinked, hesitating before replying, "I'm just cold."

His brows furrowed sympathetically as he looked about the room for something with which she could keep herself warm. Just as the housekeeper had come in to check on things, his eyes lit up, asking the woman if she could _"please fetch a quilt for my patient?" _

His patient.

Perhaps it was not a conventional term of endearment, but Esme liked to think it was rather close.

Not a few seconds later, the doctor had his patient covered in a warm white blanket – all but her distressed little leg, which he continued working on with his agile hands. There was a languid sort of attentiveness in his eyes, an ideal mixture of concentration and ease that fit his features spotlessly well. Esme was all but too content to watch his face with rapt attention while he worked.

It struck her then, how terribly unworldly she must have been, how sheltered having never known that men like this one truly existedout there in the world. All her life she had grown up with the same faces, the same flighty folk that cared more about the harvest than the heart. Then one night this perfect creature of benevolence stepped inside her home, and every wavelength of her experience to this point in life was suddenly too short. She had once thought the state of Ohio a most dreadfully dull place to live. Had she only known that it was also the residence of _this _young man, she might have had a very different opinion of it…

Esme's gaping eyes quickly tore away from the doctor's face as the sound of approaching footsteps intruded upon the silence.

"I've brought your music box, Esme," the housekeeper trilled from beside them. Doctor Cullen glanced up with curiosity to watch as she placed the decorative device on the end table by Esme's head. Considering the rest of the house, it was probably clear to anyone that this music box was the only luxury item young Esme owned, and that was only one reason among many others why it was so special to her.

"Oh, thank you, Bethany," Esme sniffed, genuinely appreciative.

"I thought it might help to take your mind off the pain," the woman said kindly as she opened the lid, unleashing the starry tinkling of a childhood melody into the room.

Doctor Cullen's eyes dropped back to his work with a quiet smile, and Esme sighed. Even while the music was meant to distract her, she continued to watch him with crude attention – every little flicker in his eyes, every twitch in his cheek, every whispery breath that fell from his lips. Esme was somewhat ashamed that she had to fight full force against the urge to weave her fingers through the soft, loose locks of golden hair on his head. She had to practically gnash her teeth together to keep from uttering aloud the indecent adorations flooding through her mind.

She distracted herself from the little, creeping bites of pain by quietly humming along with the music. Sometimes she would sing the lyrics aloud, soft enough that no one but herself could hear. Doctor Cullen sometimes spoke to her as he worked, and his voice melded seamlessly with the succinct sparkles of the music box. Like hushed gossamer, the deep flow of his accent was unbearably soothing.

But to Esme's dismay, the housekeeper's crabby voice would occasionally dare to interrupt his flowing line of silken words, like a sour note in a beautiful song. Miss Bethany would inform Esme every time she was rewinding the music, not-so-subtly urging Doctor Cullen to hurry things along. Hoping to prolong the process as long as she might, Esme kindly asked Bethany to prepare her something for dinner for that evening.

Without argument, the woman bustled hastily out of the room, leaving the music box to taper away on its own time. The room was deliciously quiet save for the bittersweet chimes, and the distinct rhythms of two pairs of lungs. Esme found that her lungs were difficult to tame when the hands of an attractive young man refused to stop touching every inch of her leg. Even with the blanket piled over her body, she could not keep herself from trembling.

"Well it's no wonder you're shivering – your hair is soaking!" The doctor chuckled softly, with a weak pat to her forehead.

"It was raining outside when I fell," Esme explained, embarrassed beyond repair.

He looked up in concern. "Did you fall unconscious, Esme?"

There was a breathy quality to the way he formed the syllables of her name which she had never heard before from anyone else. While everyone in her life had made her name sound like a groan of exasperation, or a bark of disapproval, he had made it sound like a kiss on the cheek, a plea from an angel.

_Ess_–_may..._

She nodded.

He shook his head with a worried expression, and the delightful little motions of his hands on her leg were put on pause for a moment so that he could stare at her intensely. "Miss Esme, you must promise me now that you will never climb another tree for as long as you live."

It took a moment for her to register his unexpected words, and her eyes widened in surprise. Could he have been joking?

A perplexed smile curved wryly over her lips. "For as long as I _live?" _she repeated in disbelief. "I'm not sure I could keep such a promise, Doctor."

He exhaled in faintly amused exasperation. "Well, never during a _thunderstorm_, then," he reasoned softly.

She bit her lip shyly and nodded her consent.

The doctor turned his eyes back down with a look of relief while the suspending song of the music box strained on its last several notes, trying to choke out the ending before it died down into silence.

"Shall I wind it up again?" he asked in a whisper.

Esme stifled a yawn, suddenly feeling very sleepy from the repetition of the song. "Yes, please."

Doctor Cullen looked somewhat surprised, but reached over to twirl the knob beneath the device, leaving her leg limp in his lap. His hands found her quickly after, and the enchanting chimes resumed their song as his fingers continued their swift ministrations.

"It is a beautiful song," he whispered. For a moment, Esme was so shocked at the conversational nature of his remark that she was unable to think up a reply.

Her eyebrows instead lifted in natural surprise. "Are you not familiar with it?" It was a popular song in these parts, and Esme wondered how a worldly young man like him could not recognize it. But then she realized with some chagrin that perhaps his foreignness was the very reason he had never heard it before.

"I'm afraid not," he sighed, his accent noticeably thicker.

Esme smiled kindly despite the sting in her leg. "It's called 'Forever Lost at Sea'," she shyly informed him. "It's always been my favorite."

His eyes drifted slowly from her face over to the small music box behind her. The smile on his lips bloomed as he turned his attention reluctantly back to her leg on his knee, and her heart was struck afire by his tender expression.

No matter how sweet and gentle her doctor was, there were still times when the pain of his ministrations made her want to weep. Esme distracted herself with the music, softly singing the words beneath her breath when his hand caused her pain. She consistently reminded herself that he _was _a doctor, and a very good one, despite his appearance…which more resembled the daydream of a Roman goddess.

He secured the wrappings about her leg with a small smile of triumph and an air of finality. "There we are."

Esme peered curiously over the edge of the blanket to appraise his work.

"How long will it take to heal?" she asked, dreading his answer.

"About six to eight weeks, I'd say."

"Hmm." Esme was not at all pleased with his estimate, but she tried not to let it show on her face.

The doctor sighed heavily. "Now about the rest of you..."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Excuse me?"

His brow furrowed suspiciously. "Do you not hurt all over?"

Esme certainly did not _hurt _all over, but she did feel feverish all over, slightly tremulous all over...

"Why would I?" she questioned, her voice quaking.

"Well, I'd think it obvious seeing that you're positively _decorated_ in bruises," he said in an almost admonishing tone.

Esme stared shamefully down at her arms where they lay limply over the blanket. Rather sizable plum-colored splotches had bloomed all over her rosy skin, from her shoulders to her wrists. They were somewhat hard to see in the dark, and oddly enough they had been rather hard to _feel _as well... until he had mentioned them.

"Oh..." she whimpered morosely, ghosting her fingers over the violet blots.

The doctor's palm found its way to her forehead, a cool visor over her eyes from the intrusive light of the oil lamp.

"Your housemaid neglected to tell me that you hit your head when you fell." His voice was soft yet authoritative when he spoke. "Do you feel lightheaded?" He replaced his fingers on her pulse-point and she coiled under the blanket, trying to mollify the tender twisting inside her stomach.

In that short but exquisite moment, Esme felt the clinging vibrations of his voice inside her chest. His eyes, fiercely tender, so intensely focused on hers, and his fingers, cold and firm against the pulsing spot on her neck. A soft lock of golden hair slipped out of place by his forehead, glinting invitingly in the carnelian candlelight – so frightfully taunting that her fingers twitched beneath the blanket with the overpowering need to touch it herself.

'_Do you feel lightheaded?'_ he had asked her.

"A bit..." was her belated reply.

Esme allowed herself to relax in her suddenly uncomfortable position, not willing in the least to sacrifice the beautiful pressure of his touch for the stinging pain in her leg. She could literally feel the sensual thump of her pulse against his alarmingly cold but smooth fingertips. She imagined him silently counting the beats in his head and with an inward panic, she worried he would no doubt catch the suspicious rise in frequency.

"Well, I'm not surprised. You have a few bruises here on your head that are quite swollen as well."

How on earth did he make his voice sound like that? So fragile, yet so powerful.

"Oh, dear," he murmured, moving in slightly closer to better examine her head.

Esme nervously gripped the cushion with both hands. "What is it?"

"Yes, I thought you were bleeding," he answered her indirectly, prodding a particular spot on her scalp that stung deeply.

She gasped and he withdrew his fingers in apology, wincing as though it had caused him pain as well. He swallowed hard, and she watched the subtle ripple of muscles in his throat with an indecent amount of interest.

"I'm just going to dress it with something to prevent infection," he informed her softly as she closed her eyes. Little ribbons of warmth tangled pleasantly in the center of her chest as she felt his breath, cool and calming over one side of her face.

Before she could wonder why he felt so close, his fingers were there, in the wet mess of her knotted hair, rubbing careful circles over her cuts with something cold and slick. The scent of whatever ointment clung to his fingers made her very uneasy, but it numbed each bruise with surprising quickness.

That swarthy scent, combined with his nearness made her frightfully pliable. Esme felt herself being slowly pulled under, lost in a whirlpool of delightful heat as he then endowed every bruise on her arms with the same gentle gift. The pressure of his fingers on her skin was so light, almost frustratingly so – like fairy footprints on each sore mark that marred her flesh – and each time he touched her, it startled her just as wonderfully as it did the last time.

It was a most tragic thing when he finally sealed the cap on that fragrant medicine and placed it back inside his leather bag. He swiped his fingers on a cloth and cleared the rest of the curious devices he had strewn about in his haste to heal her. She was disappointed that he would not be using the stethoscope to listen to her heartbeat – of course, maybe it was for the best. She surely would have fooled the poor man into thinking she suffered from palpitations.

He asked her a few more questions about how her head felt, if she could move her leg in this way and that way, and did it hurt when she did so? His tone was warm and patient as he told her which medicines would be appropriate for any pain she might experience later that night or in the morning. She hadn't paid very much attention to the words he was saying so much as the satin caress that was his voice. He made even the most ridiculous drug names sound romantic.

When he had replaced the furniture back where it belonged, and tucked his bag into one hand, he paused to gently close the lid of her music box just as the song drew to a close. Before he moved from his place, he took one last moment to gaze down at her, and it was as if he were seeing her for the first time, truly staring into her eyes.

His gaze was so palpable it could almost be seen, like a ray of sunlight. Straight as an arrow it was, knifing directly into her eyes and even deeper – sympathetic, innocent, concerned, sincere – all at once. But there was something else, something she could not name but clearly saw there, hidden in the countless facets of his intense stare.

Esme realized then how cursed this man was with a gaze like that. How could anyone possibly be expected to maintain eye contact with such intolerable intimacy? It was heart-wrenchingly agonizing to the poor soul who was made to endure the breathtaking pool of colors, the crystalline purity, the insufferable directness in such eyes that were most certainly tiny windows to heaven.

They were piercing with his very essence, and all at once she felt a physical pull deep in the core of her being that heightened as he continued to stare, without so much the decency to blink. She broke under the smoldering pressure of those terrible eyes, for they were so fertile with wisdom that she soon felt too humiliated to meet his gaze.

"Feel better, Esme," he concluded all too simply with that compassion-drenched smile. Her fingers twitched again, with the violent longing to trace the sinfully adorable crease of the dimple on the corner of his mouth.

She had wanted to thank him fervently; it was the least she could have done if propriety prohibited her from planting so much as a tiny kiss on his cheek. But before she could blink, it seemed, he was gone. Most likely to return home to some museum in Rome and find the marble pedestal he had so carelessly abandoned.

Esme had been positive from that day forward that this blond stranger was, in fact, an angel. It was as if God had simply reached down from heaven, plucked the wings from his back, replaced his golden harp with a stethoscope and exchanged his white robe for a white doctor's coat.

The briefest flash of his silhouette passed the window as he left her house that night, and the vision tried its very hardest to brand itself in her memory. Impressively, it remained there for a healthy portion of her young adult life. But it was never enough.

She wanted to know more about this doctor, where he had come from, what his name was. She wanted to see him again, even if it was only for an instant in passing. Her days felt so dissatisfying without him. She had not even known him before that night, yet every night thereafter was a dark and lonely stanza in an empty book of poetry. It stung her to know that her mysterious doctor was out there somewhere, showing up at other young ladies' doors to tend to their ailments.

As Esme metaphorically purged herself of every indecent thought of Doctor Cullen, new thoughts continued to spring, like overgrown dandelions in the back of her head. They were a force unstoppable, yet she was helplessly hesitant to pull the weeds.

Instead she encouraged them. She picked each one, savored it tenderly, blew the seeds in all directions and watched them dance in the breeze with the promise of new life again.

Much later down the road of life, it was demanded of Esme that she forget this man, and everything he had meant to her. He was not real any longer, and she needed to stop pretending that one day she would look outside her bedroom window and find him, smiling up at her while the sun made love to his golden hair.

She was perfectly unaware that the life ahead of her would not be a long one. It would not be a satisfying one. It would be full of hardships and tragedy and dishonesty and terrible people. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel for Esme, and she had not known it, but that very night was the night her life was secured to be one day rectified, one day rescued, one day healed.

All because she had decided to climb that silly tree.

* * *

**_A/N: _**_If you'd like to read even more about Carlisle and Esme's first meeting, you can also read Chapter 2 of my story Blink to Break the Magic for more of Esme's feelings during the encounter, and Chapter 2 of Our Love is Art for a more mature version, told from Carlisle's point of view. _

_Thank you for reading the missing memory. Now that you know how the music box ties in to the story, do you think Carlisle's Christmas gift was more significant? _


	21. To Carve a Place in Her Heart

**To Carve a Place in Her Heart**

_This is the entirety of Chapter 43: "The Memory and the Music Box" from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

There was only one store in town where a man could purchase a well made music box.

The store, which went by the humble name of Oliver's, was a rarely visited site in town, hidden on the corner of a place called Pear Street, where the pine trees grew too tall and the sun hardly ever showed her face. The store was small with braided wooden pillars, silvery red shingles on its roof, and small windows that looked like they were made of the wrong sort of glass – not traditional window glass, but the thick, clumpy kind of glass that was used to make fancy dessert trays. The store's outside appearance seemed more fitting for a Swiss mountainside than a flat Ashland market square, but it was surprisingly deserted during the week. People just didn't have the money to spend on luxury art items these days.

But Doctor Cullen, having plenty of money to spend (specifically on one very special young lady) did turn up on the doorstep of old Oliver's shop, day after day, no matter how high the snow got or how shady the pine trees.

The first time Carlisle set foot in that store, he had felt oddly like he had stepped back in time. The interior was warm and rustic, quite like the shops on the muddy streets of London when he was just a boy. There were candles on the walls – always a welcoming sight for him – and the scents of pine and wood were thick in the air. All around him, a continuous maze of shelves showcased music boxes, clocks, and tiny trinkets of all sorts for which no ordinary man would have any use. The curious doctor spent half an hour studying the remarkable display, marveling at the intricacies of every thumb-sized figurine and cog-work contraption. His wonder was pierced by a brief pang of pity, as he thought of how much Esme would have enjoyed this place. One day, he promised himself, she would have the opportunity to see it all as he did. One day...

On his very first day in the shop, Carlisle had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Oliver's own daughter, Abigail. Not more than eighteen years, she was a plump, well-mannered young girl with a noticeable sparkle in her fanciful gray eyes and a constant smile on her face. It was surprising to Carlisle that he had never seen her out and about in the town before. A girl like Abigail Oliver seemed likely to be more sociable with the other young people, but as a natural homebody, she never parted from her father.

She greeted the blond doctor with a happy blush and a jolly "Good mornin'," her brown plaits bouncing as she walked around the counter to ask him how she might be of service. It was clear from the girl's eagerness that customers were not often seen in their shop, but Carlisle was overjoyed to be one of the few to supply them with much-needed business.

He asked to see her father, and she welcomed him into the back room where Carlisle guessed no one else had been allowed to visit before. There in the dimly lit hovel, with his back hunched over a workbench and the mystic greenish light of an oil lamp by his side, was Mr. James Oliver himself. His willingness to cater to the doctor's every whim was plain from the moment he turned around, his cedar brown beard quivering with a hearty chuckle and his eyes glistening with the same gray dreams his daughter sported.

Carlisle explained the appearance of the music box he sought, in as much detail as he could, employing the aid of several sketches. He played the song as he remembered it perfectly, on a weary old harpsichord in the upstairs sitting room of the shop. He carved out a hasty replica of the original model in plaster as he had with his many other maquettes, and he showed it to the artisan, hoping the ample details he had given would be enough to recreate the music box from his most potent memory.

Mr. Oliver was indeed a perfectionist if Carlisle had ever seen one. He asked at least two or three questions before making a single mark with his carving tool, and his customer's opinion was accounted for in every detail, down to the last shade of violet that would be painted on the underside of the lid.

Every morning before his shift, and every evening before he returned home, Carlisle stopped by the store to see how the masterpiece was coming along. Sometimes he couldn't resist taking a tiny chisel to the artwork himself. He was well trusted and well liked by the Olivers by now – enough that they had asked him several times if he would consider a secret partnership. But the social hindrances of a vampire and a pair of humans were too oppressive to admit the true reasons behind his polite refusal of their offer.

The requested music box was ready in time for Christmas Eve, as they had known it would be. It was only the insufferable perfectionism of the Olivers that kept Carlisle from swiping his present and leaving them with twice the amount of cash they had been promised on the counter. He was patient as a good customer should be, but enthusiastic enough that the project was completed long before the hopeful due date.

On his way home from the hospital on the twenty-fourth of December, Carlisle made his final stop at the corner store, this time to take the piece of Esme's past home with him.

It had looked daintier than he'd thought it would. It felt heavy, but frightfully small between his hands as he picked it up and let the light touch it from every angle. His eyes admired it, inside and outside, smiling to himself as he imagined Esme's many possible reactions to the gift. He set it carefully inside a small black box and bid the Olivers farewell.

He did leave them with twice their expected sum, after all.

Carlisle was warm with joy, finally holding that music box under his arm. Its gestation period had been a long one, but it was worth the wait to finally be carrying this precious piece of Esme's past with him.

Until now he had assumed it would spark the memory for her when she first saw it. But only on the very eve he had planned to give her the gift did Carlisle begin to worry that Esme would _not _remember the music box when she saw it.

He tried to pump himself with confidence by practicing how he would open the conversation. He tried to talk himself through a situation in which she might not remember, and how he would go about helping her to relive the memory should she draw a blank. Carlisle was so very keen on filling Esme's mind with every last memory she could possibly recall. It seemed awfully unfair that the night they met was so potent in his mind, yet she could remember little more than the storm that had preceded her falling from the tree. Carlisle wished Esme could also remember the unnatural chill that had followed the rain, and the shining crescent moon that had appeared after the storm clouds had parted. He wanted her to remember the way she had blushed when he touched her, the way her eyes had glimmered as he spoke to her quietly when they were alone.

He hoped, perhaps foolishly, that seeing this music box would reawaken some of those lost details from that night. He hoped that Esme would recall the lyrics to the lovely song of the sea, and hum along with the familiar melody when she heard it again.

It was with these foolish hopes that Carlisle found himself, walking hastily up the drive toward his house, trying to outrun his nerves.

They caught up with him the moment he reached the door.

Edward had called to him from afar, and the axe on the boy's shoulder suddenly looked like a legitimate threat to Carlisle's eyes. He smiled amiably at his son, ignorant to all he had just said, for his mind was thrumming instead with Esme's presence where she stood by the porch.

"Esme, come inside, please," he told her before he rushed through the door.

Once inside, the doctor swiftly stripped himself of his coat and scarf, painfully aware of Esme's eyes hovering over his every move.

Clearing his throat for no reason, he caught her wandering eyes in the mirror and said, "I'd like to show you something, if you have a moment."

He tried to make it quick and painless, but his throat was terrible and so, so tight. His words sounded gravelly and awkward.

Esme looked regretful as she stared down at her legs. "Yes, I just...need to change out of these stockings first," she muttered politely.

Using this as an excuse to stare without admonishment, Carlisle allowed his eyes to fall to Esme's legs. They were indeed sopping, the thin, tawny stockings clinging to her knees and transparent from the wetness. There was no precedent for staring at a woman's legs for more than a moment, so he quickly looked back up to her face, hoping she hadn't thought his attention intrusive. They were, of course, just her _legs, _but he had failed to notice before how delicate and slender they looked... specifically in wet stockings.

"Oh, of course," he dismissed her, again in that unfamiliar, gravelly sort of voice.

Naturally, his eyes followed her on her way up the stairs, watching the tiny droplets of melted snow fall like dainty diamonds from the hem of her soaking skirt. Her hair fluttered out in a thrilling caramel fan behind her before she disappeared behind the corner wall, her footsteps fast until she closed her bedroom door.

That door was different than all of the others. Carlisle heard the difference, knowing always when it was Esme's bedroom door and not some other door upstairs. It had a slightly mournful sound to it when it was opened, as if begging the one who stood in its threshold to enter. Yet when it was closed, it sounded evil, strict, uninviting. It was a tease, he thought. That terrible door.

He waited for her to return, patiently but nervously, his foot scratching against the bottom stair every so often as if hoping to transfer some of his restless energy into the wood. He could hear Edward chuckling softly outside at his thoughts, and the sound was oddly comforting to Carlisle. It was a gentle reminder that he was being silly about all of this. It was just a Christmas gift. He was going to give that music box to Esme, and if it didn't help her to remember her past, then so be it. Nothing would keep her eyes from shining when she saw it, regardless of whether or not she knew of its significance to her childhood.

There was nothing to be nervous about. Nothing at all.

Then again...

When Esme reappeared at the top of the stairs, Carlisle discovered that her reaction to his Christmas gift was not all that would prompt his stomach to twist tonight.

For God's sake, he never recalled purchasing _that _dress for her before.

He could only assume one of the over-eager seamstresses had stuffed it into one of his parcels when he wasn't looking. He hoped he had paid them for it.

The words had almost risen to his lips, but they were cut short...rather like the bust of the dress Esme was wearing so beautifully. He allowed himself just one instant to be stunned by the cloudy blue color, the way it made her pale skin glow, the way her throat and nearly everything beneath it was utterly bare for his eyes to look upon. Her arms were utterly nude from the slightly ruffled sleeve at her shoulder to the tips of her fingers – slender, soft at the elbows – her skin the same flawless vanilla all over, save for the faintest tinge of pink on the tips of her fingers, as if she had been testing her watercolors.

Esme had never worn anything so revealing before, never allowed his imagination to conjure anything past the swell of her breasts beneath a fine layer of fabric. He had seen her in a wet robe only once before, but that had not been by her will. It was not merely the fact that he could see the very crevice of her cleavage in this dress, but the fact that she had deemed it appropriate to wear in his presence that baffled him so.

Either she was growing bolder by the day, or she was simply so innocent that this kind of reaction from him had not even crossed her mind.

With a wretched clutch of guilt, Carlisle had to assume the latter.

Folding her hands neatly in front of her lap, she asked, "You wanted to show me something?"

Flustered, Carlisle cleared his throat again, hoping to rid himself of the raspy curse once and for all. "Yes, follow me."

He led her into the hallway – the very dark, very quiet, very narrow hallway. Her footsteps behind him sounded so delightfully trusting, so delicate on the floor. They echoed every one of his as if it were some secret, religious code. She was breathing softly; each tiny puff of an exhale hit him squarely in the center of his back, and the warmth spread like wildfire through his body.

He closed the door to the sitting room where it was even darker than the hallway. All the curtains hung oppressively in front of the windows, blocking out the moonlight. Only a single, humble ray from the crystal lamp he lit was cast into the room. The glow fell around Esme, illuminating her pale face, her neck, her breasts – like a rosy angel she was under that light.

With a gracious hand, he motioned for her to sit, trying to keep his gaze above her chest. Her eyes were dark as she lowered herself into a tentative perch on the edge of the sofa and waited for him to reveal the reason for why they now shared this dim, quiet room alone together.

Carlisle cursed himself for falling speechless at a crucial moment such as this. In his defense, Esme's eyes were burning a hearty hole into his confidence. For no reason at all, his fingers were nervously tap-tap-tapping on the top of that black box – a primitive, idle sort of beat.

"I know that we have rarely spoken about it before, but that night I came to your house in Columbus..." he began, hating that his voice was still brushed thin by uncertainty.

He heard her swallow deep in her throat – the sort of sound that one usually tried to hide. It was impossible for vampires to hide these telltale notes, and as a result such conversations were set askew with mutual unease.

She blinked up at him expectantly – twice, her heavy lashes hid her burnished gaze from his view. Her posture was straighter, like a kitten whose neck stretches slightly at the sound of its master approaching the door. It touched and tangled his nerves even more to see her so attentive. Tiny pulses of pleasant electricity were buzzing just beneath his skin.

"You don't remember much from that night, do you?" he asked, shoulders sinking slightly in despair.

"Only that there had been a storm, I had climbed a tree to watch it, and I fell," she said simply. "Why do you ask?"

Oh, her voice. So sweet, so encouraging. She must have seen his discomfort, and now she wished to send it away by speaking to him so softly. As with everything Esme did, it did not just _touch_ his heart, it quite well _caressed_ it. Helplessly, he stepped toward her, wanting to be closer.

Carlisle slowly settled himself beside Esme on the sofa, his weight feeling awful and intrusive where she had been daintily perched. He threw her balance off just a tad, and she sunk slightly closer to him.

It was funny, all the thought he had given to preparing himself for this moment, but now that it was finally here, he let the first words that came to him slip out with no qualms.

"You'll probably think me some sentimental fool, but..."

Lifting the lid of the black box, his hand began to tremble slightly, as if he were opening the very lid to his soul. He reached inside and carried out the small but heavy music box in one careful hand. He presented it to her, pleased that his hand had kept steady as he nudged it closer. "It's for you."

An utter of surprise tickled her throat as he forced the music box gently into her unprepared hands. Her fingers opened for the gift, like slender, snowy petals parting for their nourishment. He reluctantly let go of the box, wishing to somehow give her warning of its weight. Her hands sunk beneath it, then buoyed up again, adjusting quickly to the unexpected heaviness.

There was a fascinating span of seconds where Carlisle watched Esme, staring in purest wonder at the gift he had crafted for her. It was like watching a child discover raindrops for the first time, like watching a mother marvel at her suckling infant, cooing and purring over every insignificant detail. Her eyes swam with tears, reflecting the colors of an artificial sea.

"Oh, Carlisle... I don't know what to say." Her voice was quivering, cloudy. The strain of speechlessness was rippling on the edge of her words, and he felt pleased that his gift had such a marvelous effect on her ability to speak. "Why?"

"It is a Christmas gift," Carlisle said, his voice feeling more confident as he shifted conveniently closer to her. "I'm sorry Edward and I don't openly celebrate the holidays. I felt badly and I wanted to make up for it."

A fantastic thrill had brightened Esme's eyes, and as she tilted her head back to stare at him, the light brought out every hope and dream she had ever tried to keep secret. "Thank you. It's beautiful."

Her simple words of thanks bewitched his lips to grin. "You're very welcome."

Her eyes fluttered before turning back down to the box in her hand. She explored its round shape with her fingers, gently prodding around, he supposed, for a switch or key that would bring forth the music.

He chuckled, overjoyed that his hand could play the hero, and reaching out to end her search, he whispered, "Here..."

Her hands retreated for a moment as she watched his fingers give the hidden knob several generous twists. Placing it back in her care, he softly ordered her to open it up.

Her plush cherry lips parted, and the sweetest gasp fell through as the magical chimes filled the silence. Her eyes widened in childlike enchantment, a breathless rapture as she drowned in the ceramic sea.

He could wait no longer for an epiphany that might never come. Esme was in wonder; that was enough. He could not expect her to suddenly remember every word to this song or even to recall the uncanny resemblance of this music box to the one from her childhood.

Accepting this as a fool's hope, Carlisle explained quietly to her, "Your housemaid had played it for you while I bandaged your leg, to take your mind off of the pain."

Though discreet, he wondered if Esme's memory would serve her better if he nudged her with this indirect detail.

"Oh..." Esme trailed, her eyes still frustratingly unreadable as she stared at the music box in lost delight.

"She rewound it over and over again," Carlisle recalled with a laugh, apropos to the stubborn housemaid from his memory. "Perhaps she had been hinting for me to hasten my work."

Esme's face shone like a young moon, softly startled, her eyes aghast and her lips loose. "It isn't the same one?"

"No, no," Carlisle interjected with a hasty shake of his head. "I had this made by an artisan in town. There had been no duplicates that matched the one in my memory, so I explained to him what it had looked like, and he offered to recreate it for a small sum. Of course, I helped him a bit with the carvings. I finished much of the outside myself."

The music slowed in a painfully peaceful pace until it surrendered at last to the silence. The ghostly echo of the last plinking note lingered in the air like the glittery streak of a shooting star after it disappears in the night sky. Carlisle's steady breaths grew shaky as he stared at every feature of Esme's face in turn – the modest pink hue of her smooth, round cheeks, the tempting flesh of her pouting lips, the hollowish beauty in the space beneath her brows...

Her delicate shiver drew his eyes down to her arms. "Esme..." He struggled to force his voice above a whisper. "Have I upset you?" He could already see the sobs struggling in her throat and it made him feel fantastically wretched.

"I feel awful now that I can give you nothing in return," she confessed in a teary voice.

Her guilt was like sugar to him, this sweet side effect of her unfailing kindness. Touched by her considerate worry, Carlisle smiled to himself as he took her hand in his, careful not to hold too tightly at first. He slipped his thumb across the aching curve of her thin wrist, then followed the slim white crevice of her life line into the shallow valley of her palm. There, in the very center of her hand, where the skin was its softest, he rubbed his thumb in an innocent, never-ending circle.

"You've given me so very much, Esme," he said, the low gravel returning to muddle his usually clear voice. "Very much that you aren't aware of."

His reassurance seemed to calm her mild distress, and he was thrilled beyond compare that her eyes now followed the languid motions of his finger in her hand. Encouraged to continue the mindless repetition, Carlisle's circles grew more confident, the pressure of his thumb increasing with every blink of her watchful eyes.

He was filled with the sudden and somewhat violent urge to reveal something stunning to her – something that would make her eyes widen in disbelief, and her heart come like thunder beneath her breast. He wanted to tell her something thrilling and daring, to shock her, to please her, to change the way she saw him forever.

"And if it is not too presumptuous," he began cautiously, "I do consider you...my family."

It was as close to shocking and daring as he would be getting tonight.

"Family..." The word was a breathless echo on Esme's lips, her eyes still fixed on the music box as it glittered innocently between their laps.

"I must confess I've always found the word 'coven' to be...well, very _impersonal, _I suppose," Carlisle said, smiling sadly. "It has no feeling to it. No depth. As if vampires should only be bound to one another for convenience and nothing more."

Esme looked up at him for a brief moment and his fingers suddenly felt very hot and weak. No longer able to continue the soothing strokes of his thumb across her palm, he let the pad of his finger slide down into the soft curve of her inner wrist. There, her flesh gave generously as he pressed his touch into the sensitive spot where her pulse would have once battered happily against him.

"Having a family has been my most fervent desire for as long as I can remember," Carlisle continued, distracting himself with the rosy gleam of the lamp beside her. "There had been a time when just the mere company of another was a gift to me. But now I desire far more than that. Edward has provided loyal companionship these past few years, but we've often felt incomplete."

She was thinking things over, he could see it in her face. She looked deeply affected, but solemn and silent at the same time.

His eyes fell back onto hers, and boldly he asked, "What do _you_ long for, more than anything else?"

It seemed to Carlisle that he had asked this woman the same question too many times before. Esme would often supply him with answers to this question, but none of them were fully honest. They were partial replies, cryptic mutters of nothing in particular. But Carlisle would not stop this relentless crusade until Esme spilled the contents of her very heart to him.

He could see the hesitation in her eyes, and leaning closer, he asked again in a soft but passionate voice, "If you could have _one thing_ in this world – one thing that would bring you utter peace – what would it be?"

Her eyes were bloated with tears of venom by now, and as heartless as he felt trying to pry the answer out of her, Carlisle was now all the more desperate to hear her speak.

She breathed in deeply, her voice achingly soft as she revealed, "I want to be a mother."

With just this one, insultingly quiet confession, Carlisle remembered why Esme was his only love. There was an expression of violent longing in her sweet face, one he had many times imagined in his fantasies as he touched her, bare skin to bare skin. Her innocent wish was somehow acrid in its intimacy; he had not meant for her to reveal this, yet there was no question that he had known it all along. Her eyes were wild, starving, but gentle and yes, even maternal in that moment. Carlisle's heart panicked at the thought that his love for Esme had boiled over by the blessing of some twisted fetish for the mother he'd never had. But this, as much as it ailed him, had to have been better than outright lust. He was convinced that God had brought them together for a reason, perhaps to fill that very void in his heart.

"I've wanted nothing more passionately," Esme continued, her small voice raspy with emotion, "since the day I lost my son."

The word 'son' stung him, stripped as it was by her beautiful, motherly voice. And for a disturbing instant, Carlisle wished Esme would call _him _her son.

He felt that it was misplaced love, perhaps. _He _wanted to be thought of so fondly by Esme. He wanted her to recall _his _face with such passion. He wanted her to pine for him and long for him, and become misty-eyed and wistful when she spoke of _him_ to others.

As he thought these things, Carlisle's eyes were being pulled deeper and deeper into Esme's, noticing all those tiny glittering flecks of rust and rose and copper.

"I know that I cannot have that now," she finished softly, "and it breaks my heart."

Using a slick swallow to soothe his throat, Carlisle breathed deeply and raised one hand to hide a silken lock of Esme's hair behind her delicate ear.

"That isn't true, Esme."

Perhaps it was wrong of him to tease her with such a cryptic denial, but it blew his mind to watch the exquisite way her face had changed just from hearing those words.

In the silence, Carlisle's heart was daring him mercilessly to share something intimate with Esme right now. Confession after thrilling confession was beating hard against his chest, threatening to break loose if he did not grant them release.

"You once asked me if I considered you to be a mother figure to Edward," he said before he could be stopped.

The pattern of her breath was broken.

"My answer to that would be yes..." he whispered meaningfully, "I do."

Her eyes widened slightly, and this seemed to be the anticlimactic and slightly disappointing extent of her reaction. Before she could speak, however, Carlisle continued, "While that was not my intention in changing you by any means, I am pleased that things have turned out the way they have, and I know Edward is as well."

The smile she gave him was lovely, but a little weak, as if she were not sure of his telling the truth.

To confirm his sincerity, Carlisle bared his insecurity for Esme, offering her the most ripened fruits of his vulnerable heart. "I have never known the feeling of having a mother of my own," he said in a low, slightly shameful voice, "and I don't want Edward to live that way now."

Esme was quick to defend him. "Neither do I."

"He won't have to," Carlisle confirmed with a longing smile. "He has you."

Esme was silent in the wake of this intimate remark, and like a fiend Carlisle wished she would speak for him, pour out her soul and crash into his arms a trembling mess. But she only stared at the gift in her hands, still and white as one of his maquettes. What he wouldn't give to carve Esme...

Sighing heavily, he drew his sword to the silence and spoke.

"I must be honest with you, Esme. Recently, I've found myself rather concerned about how you regard _me_." His voice crumbled a little on the pronoun, and he hoped to God she hadn't noticed. He needed to be strong for this. "Sometimes I feel that you're uncomfortable with this familiarity, yet you seem melancholy when I then try to put distance between us."

He shook his head, trying to show her how baffled he was by it all, but she still refused to look at him. "Am I still only a man who was once your doctor?" he pressed. "Because I would hope by now we were...more to one another than that."

Finally, her eyes lifted, two shimmering spoonfuls of scarlet syrup. He saw his reflection in them – a tiny face with a crown of gold, like a small, shining fetus in the hollow of her pupil.

"Of course you're more to me than that, Carlisle," she confessed in a shivery whisper. "You are...you always were..."

Slightly confounded, he asked, "Then why this distance between us?"

"I don't know. I don't know _why_."

"We're trying aren't we? We're closer every day," he said, eager but soft, "...aren't we?"

"Yes," she agreed with a slow nod. "We're...close."

"Are you happy this way?" he asked, his insecurity brushed with the bristles of honest mirth. "Because I am."

Her lovely hands clutched the music box tighter as she met his eyes, a sad but glorious smile on her face to match his own. "I am. I am happy this way," she confirmed for him, her gaze glittering furiously as if she knew what a blessing those words were for his ears.

The warmth of his own smile was still present on his lips as he looked down at her hands, noting how each finger looked more loving than the one it followed. "It's a bit distressing to think of how long it took for us to reach this point, isn't it?"

Their joint laughter was tentative but knowing, both aware that they were taking pity on each other in their mutual foolishness. It was a little bit wonderful to be so open, so free.

Then Esme tarnished the moment with a most stirring pair of words.

"Oh, Carlisle."

Her body slipped closer to him, the fine velvet brush of the cushion beneath her like music to his ears. As if in slow motion, he watched her small white hand part with the music box to reach up for him. He anticipated that her fingers would meet with his cheek, but instead they rested one by one on his shoulder. She seemed so horribly hesitant to impose pressure on him – he had to concentrate to truly feel her touch.

He tipped his head forward, trying to understand the mixed emotions that were sleeping in her eyes. "You still seem sad."

Her face became slightly worried as he said this. "I suppose I am...a little."

"Why?" As he leaned in closer, Carlisle felt like an imposing child, asking her to explain something that could never be explained.

But Esme, Lord bless her, was going to try.

"Well...because sometimes I..." she stammered, but her words were even more perfect in their emotional tangles. "Sometimes I'm afraid that I'll only end up losing this... Losing _you_."

He should have been appalled that she could even think that. His heart should have shattered at this entirely irrational worry of hers; it was absurd of her to think he would even _dream _of leaving her. But instead of frowning, Carlisle was smiling as he wrapped a protective arm around Esme, and she was once again his delicate sixteen-year-old patient. She held to him so tightly that his heart ached, and every frozen cell in his body felt like a flame.

"You'll never lose this, Esme," he assured her, his voice strong and steady, but calming. "You could stay here forever, and we would _never_ abandon you." Changing just one word, he made the promise a personal one. "_I _would never abandon you."

He allowed his words to sink in, accepting the silent stretch of time where her mind rippled with the tranquil echoes of his voice.

As she breathed peacefully in his arms, his hands indulged themselves in the luscious curve of her back, traveling slowly from her shoulder blades down to her hips. There he stopped himself, swallowing hard, and laced his fingers together protectively over the small of her back. With a deep breath he bravely pulled her closer until their thighs were brushing against each other. Every little tremble in her body tickled him from her closeness; her hair was fragrant and untamed, falling in heavy tendrils over his shoulders as she buried her nose against his sweater. The shifting of her head caused the cross beneath his collar to rub along his skin, her hand perched over the place where his heart should have beat.

"Think back on all that we've already been through together," he told her, settling his chin in the silken bed of her hair. "Surely there is proof enough that we can withstand any tribulations we might face in times to come."

He felt so naked when he spoke like this, with the formal fervor of the 17th Century. He was not censoring his language, not bothering to modernize his every word. He wondered if she noticed how vulnerable this made him feel.

"How do we know that something won't separate us forever?" was her childlike question.

Smiling, Carlisle responded, "Because as a family, we are bound together by love." The last word lingered between them, like the frustrating flash of color that stays in the air when a banner has been waved under the sun. "And that is something you can never lose."

Another cloud of silence descended upon them, but it did not sit between them as it had done in the past. This time the silence was a slave to them. It enveloped them like a mother's warm hand, pushing them gently together. It encouraged them to share their every breath, to feel every shift in pressure and savor every accidental swipe of skin against skin.

The silence was very kind to them. Carlisle's eyes closed appreciatively as he surrendered to their contented embrace. He did not expect Esme to break their silent peace so soon, but what she had used to break it was something remarkably shy and soft.

"I missed you..." she whispered as if lost in a blissful dream, her breath cool and thrilling on the bare skin of his neck.

"I'm right here," he reminded her, his mouth dry. He was unable to swallow venom for fear that even the slightest stroke of his Adam's apple would discourage her closeness.

"No..." she dragged out the word, "I missed you _every day of my life_, Carlisle."

Not even Christ Himself could have shared a confession more thrilling.

Deep beneath his breath, in a tone so low not even a vampire could catch them, Carlisle whispered these two words: "_How much_?"

Esme did not hear him. If she had, she surely would have answered.

This was one of those moments. Carlisle knew his heart was going to force him to say something unforgivably intimate. He did not take the time to prepare for himself for it; he simply spoke the words when they came to him, honest and true.

"Do you know what I believe, Esme? You are the first person in my life who has truly understood what it means to be lonely the way I do," he murmured, holding her tighter. "For that, I am irrevocably appreciative."

He felt her hand cling more securely to his shoulder, her breasts pressing more firmly against his chest. She felt too soft, too vulnerable. Nearly half her skin was bare, he reminded himself, as if it could do anything to help him. Her dependence was making him feel far too heroic.

"Promise me we won't ever have to be apart again," she pleaded against his shoulder. Her voice hitched – a weak, broken sort of sound, like the soft scrape of a ceramic plate that only makes you cringe if you listen hard enough. Something in that sound spurred the first tingling threat of arousal deep in his lap. Carlisle shifted slightly to protect his honor, hating that he had to loosen his grip on Esme to do so.

"I will promise this, Esme," he consented steadily. "I ask only that you work just as hard to keep that promise for me as well." His voice quieted as he emphasized, "You must understand that I am just as vulnerable when it comes to being alone. Will you accept this as my weakness?"

"Your weakness?" she repeated as her head lifted to look at his face.

"One of many, my dear," he sighed humbly.

"You aren't weak, Carlisle," Esme said, her voice surprisingly strong as she shook her head. The curls of caramel struggled where the static had linked them to his sweater. "I am weak," she concluded shamefully, "I'm unforgivably sensitive about absolutely everything."

"You are," he confirmed, his voice thick as he refused to censor his words this time, "_beautifully _sensitive, Esme." He hadn't meant it to sound so passionate, and the tone of his own voice forced his chest to tighten. Raising one helpless finger to explore the softness of her chin, he whispered wisely, "But sensitivity is not the same as weakness."

"I am weak because I fear being parted from you and Edward," she admitted in a small voice. "I could never live without you." She dove for his chest again, and the urgent pressure of her head against his heart was deliciously kind to his fragile state of arousal. "Even when you were away for just a few days, I could barely breathe without you near me. I missed you so much..."

His eyes closed, calling peace to his control as he whispered absently, "I know..."

"You can only imagine," she whimpered, clinging to his sweater.

He couldn't help it. Honesty was a drug to him this evening, and so the words spilled out of their own volition. "I did not imagine your scent lingering in my study the day I returned."

Her little body tensed against him, and for a moment Carlisle was struck with embarrassment for her. She pulled up, her eyes desperate and dilated as she made poor, stuttering attempts to defend herself. "I was... I just—I..."

The forgiveness must have been quite plain on his face. His smile felt heavy and fond, as did his gaze.

"You do not need to explain anything, Esme. Edward has confirmed my every curiosity. You sought my presence through that space, just as I sought yours through my writing." Taking her hand possessively against his heart, Carlisle said softly, "Our bond is growing stronger every day, Esme. This is what we both need. For so long I've wondered, that you could be the missing part of the family Edward and I have tried for so long to establish. Have you not felt it as well?"

"I felt it," she sighed, barely waiting for him to finish the question. "I felt it from the very beginning."

"Then you know," he marveled, choking on the bittersweet weight of his emotions. "You know how deeply I care for you."

She nodded slowly, sleepily, burrowing her face beneath his neck. Carlisle felt like the inside of his soul was being washed, flushed through and through with pure, cool mist, then dried and filled with a gladsome light. Pounds of tension he had kept locked on his shoulders for months were now flittering away like frightened butterflies.

"Where do we go from here?" Esme asked trustingly, her sweet voice muffled against his chest.

Touching the music box in her lap, he whispered one blessed word for her lonely ear. "Forward."

The embrace they shared was so precious, neither of them would dare to put an end to it, or they would feel like a tyrant. So they carried on that way, tragically locked in one another's arms for one lengthy minute after another. Carlisle's mind had soon sailed off into a fantasy, wistfully envisioning a world where they shared this embrace every day. In this fantasy he could call Esme his own, and any day he wished, he could come home and she would be there, thirsting for him to hold her, aching to have his arms imprison her.

So many times he had cursed his weakness for elaborating the innocent scene in his mind. Sometimes he sent this dream-Esme away with a chaste kiss for her cheek, but other times he was an insatiable sybarite, tugging on her waist until she followed him without resistance. Out of nowhere, a soft pink fire would appear behind them, and it was too warm to refuse. So warm that they would shed their clothes before falling into it, and he would fall above her, always, so that she had no means of escape. He trapped her beneath him, forcing her to feel his love in every form. And she was so willing beneath him, her eyes fluttering and her lips quivering with every stroke of his body against hers.

A distant chime interrupted the luxury of their tangled limbs, pulling Carlisle's thoughts halfway back into reality. The half that lingered in his dream, however, was still powerful enough to fool him.

Esme had nudged her head boldly against his neck – a sensual, feline gesture – which caused his eyes to wake from his dream in surprise. The feral side of their vampire instincts was not so easily suppressed when faced with such intimacy. Carlisle could feel the heat of those carnal genes simmering beneath his better judgment. Before he could tame them, he responded to her animalistic accident, dragging his chin over the silky top of her head. His entire body was thrumming from the delightful pressure of that one simple motion, more so from knowing Esme had been the one to initiate it.

He purred against her, and where he would have normally been appalled by his failure to censor such an inappropriate reaction, Carlisle was now unwilling to hide it. Flawless control, in that moment, seemed utterly trivial and overrated.

He could feel Esme tugging lightly, but he had no time to wonder why before she had pulled out from between his heavy arms. "I suppose I should retire for the evening now," she said, her voice raspy and spent – rather the way it sounded when she lay beneath him in his pink-fire daydreams.

Carlisle tried to protest, but was afraid of making words – afraid that his voice would be loaded with that same gentle gravel, that she would be unable to understand anything but his lingering lust.

"Good night," Esme told him. And she vanished behind the door, without once looking back.

Frozen in his place, Carlisle watched the empty doorway where she had disappeared, waiting for the strength to rebuild itself in his chest, waiting until his legs felt less like vapor and more like iron. When his senses at last reunited, he stood and he went after her.

It was funny how the familiar hallway now felt like a foreign jungle to him. It became a long, twisting maze when Esme was the prize at the end. She was not far at all, but nowadays even just a wall between them felt like the Lion's Gate at Mycenae.

"Esme!" he hissed her name before she could take the second step.

He saw her there on the stairs, looking like a sky blue goddess, her milky skin gleaming under the romantically dim lights. He knew the instant he saw her that he was going to be an utter disaster in his speech – he was going to spew all sorts of Shakespearean stutters and fail to use the right pronouns. He could already feel the curse of Early Modern English dancing on his ancient tongue, his natural discomfort with contractions straining in his throat. He was going to lose all his integrity because when Esme was staring at him from _above_, he never felt more wonderfully vulnerable.

"Must we be parted this night – or any night for that matter?" Carlisle cringed inside at the way he sounded, but with Esme's encouraging gaze, he abandoned all worries and embraced his homesick tongue. "I think it fair for you to know how dearly I miss your company in your absence. Every room feels darker without you in it."

He could see the irony of his concern now – why, even modern women found this kind of speech irresistible_._ Esme was staring down at him as if into a pit of dazzling roses, the flattered flush causing her eyes to glow like rubies in the insufficient light.

"Oh, Carlisle... You can't mean that."

His arms and legs felt miraculously stronger with her soft-spoken words.

"You know there is truth in it," he whispered forwardly. His curdling confidence spurred him to continue, "There were nights when we would do nothing but talk to each other until dawn. Whatever happened to those times, that closeness we once shared?"

He watched in agony as her face grew sad. "No matter how close we may have been in the past, there was always something missing," she said with a slow shake of her head. "We were never as close as you think."

Rather than be condemned by her doubts, Carlisle softened his resolve for a moment, to step back and find the truth in what she had told him. "Perhaps we weren't," he regretfully admitted. "Perhaps there is something missing between us. But I wish to rectify that – no, I _vow_ to rectify that – beginning now." He firmly placed his foot on the first stair, seeking any means to emphasize his sincerity. "I refuse to let you spend Christmas Eve alone, and I refuse to spend this evening without you." He stretched out his arm, offering his hand as a lonely flower offers its petals to the sun. "Please stay."

Esme's hand came forward at once, and Carlisle was thrilled by the notion that her instinct had led her to him with such immediacy. But he waited while she hovered, her tempting fingers teasing him like a rain cloud teases a thirsting landscape. His fingers opened a little, making more space to accommodate her, though her hand was quite small. Her lips parted as she watched his fingers spread, and he thought he could see it in her eyes – how his open hand looked inviting to her.

"I...I will stay with you," Esme whispered, an incantation for his relief. "I only ask that I first have a minute to myself. I must collect my thoughts," she explained quietly, as if afraid he would refuse her. "It may not seem much to you, but I feel our conversation this evening deserves more attention from me, and I wish to be alone for that time. Just for a little while."

It hurt that she would desire to be parted from him, even if she needed only a few minutes. But that hurt was erased when Carlisle quickly replayed her words in his mind. She wanted to give their conversation more _attention. _She wanted to revisit what had been said between them...alone.

Carlisle assumed this could only be a positive thing. Fate placed a cautious smile on his lips as he agreed to Esme's request. "Of course. I understand."

Taking one step away from him, she sent him a breathy promise, "I will be back down."

Like a fool, he realized a bit too late that his hand was still extended for her. As casually as he could, he let his arm lower against his side, taking care not to let his hand linger by his hip. The ingrained habit was becoming easier to break in Esme's presence. As was the manner of a gentleman at an 18th Century gala, Carlisle subconsciously slipped the refused hand behind his back.

He let her ascend only a few more steps before he called to her. "But Esme?"

She immediately turned to look down at him, a plain vulnerability in her eyes.

"Nothing need change if you do not wish for it to change," he offered.

"Oh, but I do," she gushed gently, her eyes lighting up, becoming more confident. "I do wish for a change. That has been my wish for the longest time." She paused, blinked, and gave him a delicate, lopsided smile. "I just never realized it until you said it."

Carlisle wondered if Esme knew how he waited for her smile, like a young boy waits for a comet to pass in the late hours of night. It was not quite as rare to see Esme's smile, but there was a curious phenomenon about the gesture in that it became more coveted the more times he had seen it. Every time she showed him her small, pearly teeth, and the nudge of that soft, mocking dimple on the corner of her mouth, he was stricken with the need to write pages and pages about her beauty – all because of that one shy, tender smile. It bore her very essence, the mirth of roses and the sweetness of berries and the brightness of summer. It was entrancingly beautiful and a little awkward, and so disgracefully _young._

"Just a few minutes," Esme reminded, twisting that smile of hers in the most heart-numbing way.

Satisfied at last with her promise to return, Carlisle backed away from the stairs, breaking all contact with the banister. It felt slightly awkward to stand on his own. He had been needing support for so long.

With one last meaningful glance, Esme disappeared around the corner, her flighty footsteps barely brushing the carpet as she dashed to her room.

Carlisle made a mad dash of his own just then, as soon as she was out of sight. His feet carried him out the back door and into the snowy wilderness, running like an unarmored gladiator with a famished lion on his heels.

Right now, that famished lion was Edward.

"Always the wisest men who have the most trouble with women," the affectionately sardonic voice said.

The blond vampire whipped his head around as he skidded to a halt by the edge of the lake. "I_ beg_ your pardon?"

Slowing in far more graceful form, Edward stared at his father in surprise. "I have to be honest, Carlisle," he annunciated each of his words like a parent teaching a child, "I am shocked you didn't tell her."

"Oh, son," Carlisle exhaled in exasperation, pounding his fist against the side of a delicate gray pear tree. The branches shuddered from the force of his hand, their coating of snow falling onto his shoulders. "How would I just... tell her?"

Edward rolled his eyes, gesturing animatedly with both hands as he paced the shore of the frozen lake. "God, I don't know. How about something like, 'You know, Esme, you're like a mother to that damn Edward, and I'm like a father to that damn Edward—Well, jolly good! Let's elope!'" He mimicked an impressive British accent and slapped the side of the tree, causing more snow to dust Carlisle's shoulders. "Makes sense, right?"

"Well, it's too late now," Carlisle murmured mindlessly, his eyes thrashing back to the house behind them. "But she's taking everything so _well_, Edward," he added excitedly. "I'm almost there..."

Edward stared pityingly at his father for a long moment. Boyish and blond, Carlisle stood in the dull, foggy Christmas moonlight, snow caked on his sweater, and his eyes glowing like a child waiting on a miracle. With a wiry smile of disbelief, Edward shook his head and looked away from the beautifully pitiful sight.

Carlisle said tentatively, "I will not ask you to read her thoughts, son—"

"You never do," was the boy's wooden interruption.

"—but I must ask a favor of you this evening."

Consenting with a pair of raised eyebrows, Edward invited the request.

"When she comes back down..." Carlisle began.

"Yes?"

"Would you be so kind as to begin our piano lessons tonight?"


	22. Unmasked by Moonlight

**Unmasked by Moonlight**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 44: Hands in Harmony" from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

"So what do you want me to do, exactly?" Edward asked, still grinning.

_I want you to help me in any way that you can. Encourage her to be...closer to me. It doesn't matter how you do it, but take care not to pressure her. Make it sound natural._

Edward voiced his task thoughtfully. "Get her closer to you."

_Be discreet._

He chuckled. "Right. Discreet."

_Edward..._

"Don't worry. I understand you."

Carlisle bit his lip nervously as he watched his son sprint ahead, his feet stirring up powdery snow in his run. As the house came back into view, the doctor paused halfway up the hill, his legs stiff as he stood in the snow.

Edward halted and grudgingly turned to face his father. "Yes, was there something else?"

_At some point during the evening, you should leave us alone, if you can._

"You won't do it, Carlisle," the boy protested woodenly. "It never happens when you say you're going to finally do it. It never does."

_It won't ever happen if you don't give me the chance, son._

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "It's not up to me to determine when the time is right, Carlisle."

_Shh... I can hear her._

Carlisle took off, sprinting the rest of the distance to the back door of the house where he could hear Esme's music box playing softly in the bedroom upstairs.

_She's listening to the music box. Do you hear it? I wonder if she is thinking of me._

Edward choked back the urge to confirm his father's hopeful thought as he walked into the house after him. Keeping both Carlisle and Esme's minds a secret to the other was a challenging task, and growing more difficult by the day.

"If I start playing the piano, she'll come down," Edward whispered, walking casually over to the music room.

Carlisle lingered by the staircase, his eyes following the path Esme had taken to reach her bedroom door. From where he stood he could not see anything more than the slim sliver of golden light that cut across the carpet in a fan-like shape from beneath her door. A lovely warmth spilled into his chest as the trickling chimes of her music box began again, stronger this time as she rewound it.

He drifted into the music room, smiling boyishly as Edward did his best to ignore the foolish nature of his thoughts.

Edward asked his father to watch as he played a song on the piano. The boy's skilled fingers executed a beautiful number in a moderate tempo, giving Carlisle's eyes time to memorize the individual notes. The song seemed to end too fast, and as Edward slid from his place on the bench, he nodded toward the piano, expecting Carlisle to repeat what he had just seen.

In the room above them, Esme had paused, no doubt listening for the rest of the song that had been cut short. Carlisle's fingers grew tense with the pressure to perform flawlessly for her waiting ears. Taking a deep breath, his fingers dove into the song.

He was playing it for _her, _and it showed in the passionate tone of the music. There were many ways for a man to play a single melody, and it could sound as joyous as it could sound mournful, depending on the mood of the one who played. The feelings Carlisle felt while he played were those of love and peace, and the song reflected those feelings beautifully. In a way, he was calling to Esme with the simple conversation of a few harmonious notes on the piano.

He found himself entirely lost in the song for the few moments it took her to come downstairs. He didn't even realize she was standing right there watching him until he looked up by chance and found her eyes fixed on him.

"I didn't want to disturb you," she said softly. The world took a breath along with him.

"It's no disturbance," Carlisle replied automatically, though his heart would have argued the truth of this statement. He was all but throbbing with the intrusion of her presence. "I was just taking advantage of dear Edward's Christmas gift." He smiled, mentally reminding Edward that this scene was still first and foremost a ploy to bring Esme closer.

Esme turned to Edward with a lovely smirk. "So how is he, Maestro?"

Edward shrugged ambivalently. "He's no _Amadeus_, but he's not a disaster either."

Carlisle laughed helplessly at Edward's teasing remark, his eyes stuck to Esme's exquisite face. _Her eyelashes look particularly long this evening_, he thought, before he realized what an idiotic thought it was. Carlisle winced softly, embarrassed that his son had to overhear his foolish monologue. But even the embarrassment could not contain his thoughts tonight. Esme was simply too stunning to waste time on censoring himself.

As if she could read the nature of his thoughts, her sinfully red lips twitched into a half-smile as he stared up at her from behind the piano.

_Edward, ask her to sit beside me_.

Edward moved casually to the side, fumbling around with a stack of music books. "Esme, why don't you, ah, sit down and I'll teach you both to play something."

Her lip dropped open for a brief moment before she uttered a hasty response. "It's fine, Edward. I'll wait until you two are finished." She folded her hands behind her back. "I wouldn't want to make things frustrating for you."

Carlisle sighed inwardly. She was just too polite for her own good.

Ever resourceful, Edward pointed out, "I did agree to teach _you_ as well, Esme. I could kill two birds with one stone, you see?" He patted the empty space on the piano bench invitingly. "Come sit down."

Esme hesitated, only for a short moment as she considered the offer. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes looked intense as her bare feet padded over the hard wood floor to join them at the piano.

She gingerly sat down beside Carlisle, her legs brushing against each other between the skirt of her dress, making a lovely swishing sound as she moved. Her scent flowered around him, tickling his nose and making his neck warm. He was growing addicted to her closeness.

"I have an idea," Edward said suddenly. "Why don't I teach you both to play a duet?"

_Oh, son, that's perfect._

Carlisle could barely hide his smile as he played along. "Do you really think that's the best idea for two people who are just starting out, Edward?"

Edward smirked out of Esme's view. "Of course it is. The best way to learn the subtleties of timing is to play along with another person."

Esme shifted uncomfortably on the bench. "Then I think it's only fair to warn you both, now – I've never had the best timing in the world."

"That's what I'm here for," Edward said smugly. "Besides I've played these duets by _myself._ I'm sure they'll be easy as pie for you two."

Carlisle cocked his head, uncertain as to why Edward had used the plural, _duets._ "I thought we agreed to learn only _one _song, son."

"We agreed to one song _per person,_" Edward corrected. "And since Esme is here now, I think it makes sense if you both learn _two _duets."

Carlisle eyed his son warily, worried Esme would find the expectation of two songs overwhelming.

_For heaven's sake, don't overdo it, Edward._

Carlisle quickly arranged his features into a mildly annoyed expression as Esme turned to look at him.

"Fine. One duet for the both of you," Edward agreed reluctantly. It growing more difficult for Carlisle to tell whether or not Edward was truly disappointed or merely acting. If it were the latter, the boy was doing a very convincing job.

Carlisle quickly backed away from the bench as Edward waved them aside so that he could sit in front of the piano. "Pay attention now because I'm only going to play it for you once," he warned.

He raised his hands above his head, flexed his fingers a few times, then dove into the song.

Edward could have played that song a thousand times and it still would not have looked any easier to the eyes of a beginner.

"See? I told you. It's so simple a child could learn it," he said casually as he rose from the bench.

Esme looked mildly horrified, which was exactly the expression Carlisle had feared...and now one that he shared as well.

_Oh, Edward, what are you doing?_

"Alright now..." Edward began deviously, ignoring his father's questioning thoughts. "Which of you should be on top?"

Carlisle nearly choked. "I...beg your pardon?"

_Edward, I asked you to keep this discreet! What on earth are you even talking about?_

"One of you has to play the top part and the other has to play the bottom," Edward clarified, his face entirely innocent. "You saw how I played the top with my right hand and the bottom with my left?"

"Oh, of course," Carlisle sighed in relief. He eyed the woman beside him warily. "I suppose we should let Esme choose."

"Top or bottom, Esme?" Edward asked.

Carlisle resisted the urge to slap his hand against his forehead.

"I'll take the _right-handed_ part, thank you," Esme replied hotly.

With some satisfaction, Carlisle met Edward's eyes. _Well, she handled you quite classily, didn't she?_

Obviously struggling to suppress his laughter, Edward ignored his father's thought. "Okay, Esme wants to be on top. Switch sides."

_No more nonsense, Edward. _Carlisle scolded, feeling it was rather useless._ I mean it._

Edward rolled his eyes as Carlisle settled on the bench beside Esme.

"Now the idea behind a duet is to compromise. When you're playing with another person it can be tricky to keep time. It requires a lot of...well, trust."

As Edward finished speaking, Carlisle could nearly feel the nerves radiating from Esme at his side. Her fear of failure in all things was endearing until it came at his own expense.

"Carlisle, since you're playing as the left hand, your job is to support the notes Esme plays as the right hand," Edward said, pointing to the keys for emphasis while he spoke. "You must keep the correct tempo or else you'll throw her off, and the whole song will be ruined."

Carlisle crossed his arms unappreciatively.

Esme glared up at Edward, the classic look of a displeased mother on her face. "Come now, Edward."

_Yes, come now, son. _Carlisle chimed in by thought.

"Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself," Edward waved her on with a casual smile. "Just try to play the first staff like I did."

Edward stepped into his place behind the piano, watching them closely as they slowly went about following his instructions without his guidance. Carlisle was strongly reminded of the look a panther gives its prey before it is about to pounce. This thought may have been the reason Edward's grin so suddenly widened.

Carlisle brought his fingers up to the piano keys, then looked expectantly over at Esme, waiting for her to do the same. She was hesitating already, her hands tucked tightly beneath her legs. As much as he longed to reach beneath her and tug her hands out of hiding, he knew doing so would likely earn him a slap to the cheek.

He waited patiently for her to join him on the keys, wondering if it was only his own anxiety that made the time go by so slowly. Finally, she slipped her hands out from beneath her thighs and lifted them to the piano beside his. He could see her trembling slightly and it unnerved him.

_She looks nervous, _Carlisle whispered through his mind.

Edward smiled understandingly, and just from the look on his face, Carlisle knew what the boy was about to say would be less than favorable. "Don't be nervous, Esme. It's only your first try. I'll understand if you make a disaster of it."

Carlisle eyed his son warningly, voicing his admonishment aloud this time. "Edward."

"Sorry," he muttered flippantly, still smiling. "Go on."

Using the piano as an outlet, Carlisle allowed his fingers to get lost in the keys. As he played, he watched Esme's hands the entire time, distracted by the way she moved, tentative yet trying. Her fingers were small but they had such potential, such capability that she kept hidden. He was aware of the powers she held in those unassuming hands of hers; her brilliant artistry was testament to this. Though her hands may have been more comfortable hovering above black and white sketches as opposed to black and white piano keys, Carlisle could tell that Esme was eager to do her best.

She fumbled a bit when the song became more complex, and he slowed his own pace mercifully, allowing her the chance to find a solid grasp on her timing. They had reached that intimidating point in the song where their fingers would almost touch with every other chord. Back and forth, their hands moved, far away, then back again; closer and closer with every pass. Carlisle's wrists were tingling with excitement every time her hands came near. His fingers felt like they were on fire when hers nearly brushed them. Just when his excitement had begun to peak, Esme suddenly pulled her hands away, abandoning him with a final unharmonious chord.

An irrational part of Carlisle's mind worried that she had feared having any contact with him, and that fear had caused her to give up so abruptly. There seemed to be no other logical reason for why she would suddenly abandon him in the middle of the song. He looked down to see her face but found her expression frustratingly blank. Baffled, Carlisle's instincts led him to mentally interrogate his son.

_Why did she stop? Edward, what happened? Is she giving up already?_

He knew his questions were useless; Edward could no more answer him aloud than Carlisle could utter his every thought for the world to hear. Carlisle wanted desperately to ask Esme why she had stopped, but seeing the crestfallen expression on her sweet face silenced him. Shielded by panic, his words died in his mouth. His eyes immediately sought out Edward for some kind of rescue.

What Edward had to say was hardly heroic. "I must say, I'm very disappointed in my pupils."

_Edward, I beg of you, do not make this any worse than it already is._

"I thought we did fine for our first try—" Carlisle began reasonably before Edward interrupted him.

"If you're just going to argue with everything I say, I'm not going to bother keeping up a patient facade for much longer."

Carlisle opened his mouth to chide his son for speaking out of line, when he was suddenly stopped by the clearly significant look on Edward's face. For whatever reason he must have had in mind, the boy was asking him to play along.

Despite his desire to cringe at such a sardonic retort, Carlisle managed to match his son's haughty demeanor. "Ah, so this is you being _patient_, is it?"

Surprised by his newfound ability to crack verbal whiplash, Carlisle had to admit a part of him had liked how it sounded.

Edward must have been agitated a bit more by his father's unexpected moment of pride.

"That's it," he snapped. Scooping up an armload of music books, Edward turned on his heel, mumbling something or other about being underappreciated in their house.

Carlisle watched as the boy conveniently shut the doors behind him, chuckling inwardly at the perfect scenario they had just played out together.

_Edward, that was brilliant._

Esme did not appear quite as thrilled by Edward's abrupt departure.

"He's just being temperamental," Carlisle said with an assuring smile.

She still frowned. "I don't know what could have possibly made him so upset."

He shrugged dismissively, hoping to drop the subject before she caught on. "You know Edward."

"We didn't do _that_ badly..." she said half to herself. "Did we?"

Her beautiful, wide eyes looked to him shyly for an answer.

"No," he said, a bit too fast, a bit too passionate. "You did wonderfully."

Esme's responsive smile was awfully vague – not quite the full, room-brightening, lopsided smile he was hoping for, but it was better than nothing at all. She turned away and began to play with the ruffles of her short, bell-like blue sleeves.

"Maybe we should practice it more...for when Edward comes back," she offered quietly.

Carlisle could have cheered. She was playing into his plan too perfectly.

He couldn't help but grin. "I doubt it will do much good, but I suppose it couldn't hurt," he reasoned with a shrug.

Esme's arms straightened gracefully as she brought her fingers back up to touch the keys. Her touch was ever so delicate, almost cautious, as if she were reaching over a hot stove. Lord, her hands were so shy. It was enchanting in a way, for reasons he could not pinpoint. Carlisle could imagine Esme's hands being bold in more intimate situations, and it was a delectable thought... but not an appropriate thought for a moment like this.

Esme tilted her head up to gauge his reaction. Hopefully she had not caught the residue of his daydreams in the darkness of his eye. "Should we just…?"

Her voice brought him back to the real world.

"Yes, go on," he breathed.

With his permission, Esme began to play, her loving fingers struggling to find their confidence on the keys. When the melody invited the left hand, Carlisle joined her, hoping the support of his chords would help her feel more comfortable with the song. The beauty of both the right and left handed parts was truly exhilarating when played in harmony.

They were able to make it through the first several bars quite flawlessly, then one unfortunate finger slipped, landing on the wrong note. The sharp sound may as well have been a nail scraping against a chalkboard. Carlisle had been so distracted by his joy at making music with Esme that he hardly recognized the sour note. But Esme gave a tiny jolt of shame at her mistake and snapped her hands away from the piano before they could finish.

"Oh, dear. That was awful. I'm so sorry," she stuttered pitifully. "I don't know what happened."

As gently as he could, Carlisle attempted to console her with a reassuring chuckle. "It's quite alright."

"I'm a failure at piano," she lamented, burying her fingers in her hair.

Carlisle hoped his laughter had not come off as degrading. It was merely his own boost in confidence at seeing Esme look so lost that spurred a feeling of humor in him. All he wanted to do was wake that same confidence in _her._

"Nonsense. You've only tried it twice yet," he said, second guessing himself before he could rub her shoulder. "More practice will help."

"How did you manage to become so good at it?" she asked, genuinely stumped.

Carlisle beamed inwardly at her indirect compliment, his fingers twiddling in embarrassment. "I would hardly call myself good, but Edward's perpetual boredom over the years often resulted in useless attempts to make me play."

"But you've never tried to learn a full song before?" she asked, surprised.

"I've always lost my patience," he admitted.

She tilted her head back thoughtfully. "That seems very unlike you."

Though she would never know it, Carlisle's heart thanked Esme profusely.

"Music may just not be my forte," he conceded simply.

"It isn't mine either," she said with a pout.

"Well now, that's what we're here for, isn't it?" he nudged her amiably, hoping to put her at ease.

"It's still daunting, though."

"It doesn't have to be," he pointed out.

That was the second time Esme had given him her irresistible, wide-eyed stare of hopeless desperation. Carlisle had to struggle to tame his ego before he settled her with a patient smile.

"Might I suggest you try it like this?"

He replaced the spot her hands had previously taken on the piano to play her part, slow enough that she could catch the nuances she might have missed when Edward played it. He was careful to emphasize the correct timing, tapping his foot beneath the pedals so she could follow along.

She crossed her arms when he had finished, not looking nearly as pleased as he had expected her to. "Maybe _you_ should play the right hand," she suggested with an austere glare at the piano.

His chest shook with jovial laughter as he opened his arms to place one on either side of her. "That's not fair, now. You've committed to this, now you're going to learn it," he said as he picked up each her hands and placed them back on the keys. He was gentle but adamant about his placement of her fingers, declaring this spot as her temporary home.

He stayed longer than he had intended in arranging her hands, though she had not needed his help to begin with. He felt strong and capable when she let him dictate the placement of her hands. He loved when she let him touch her freely and willingly.

"Just try it," he whispered to her. "Nice and slow."

She took a deep breath and began to play. At first she started out fine, then as he'd worried, she slowly lost control of her tempo. Carlisle supposed his undivided attention for every move she made may have had something to do with it, and it made him feel a bit guilty.

Esme pulled her hands away before she could finish, confounded. "Why does it still sound wrong?"

Carlisle tapped on his wrists for an uncomfortable moment as he considered how to go about making her aware of the problem. "Forgive me, Esme, but I believe it's your timing. It's just a bit off."

"Oh, I tried to warn him!" She shook her head in exasperation. "I'm just not very in tune with things like timing and tempo and whatnot."

Her excuses were little more than candy to Carlisle's ears. As she mourned her inability to make music, his mind was frantically concocting any possible way to bring her closer. Of course, their situation was already quite favorable for getting to know one another better, but this time he wanted that closeness to be physical. No, he _needed _it to be physical. And he was not going to let his insecurity get the better of him.

Before he could stop himself, Carlisle shifted as close to Esme as the empty space between them would allow. His right hip brushed against hers with a thrilling little sound of cotton fabric rubbing together. Once she was pressed snugly against his side, he bent over to collect her small, bare foot where it hung beneath the piano and placed it securely on his shoe.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, surprise and humor evident in her voice.

She giggled helplessly as he readjusted her foot on his, and his face broke into a relieved grin. "Helping you keep correct timing."

"How is _this _going to help with my timing?"

"I'm going to keep time for us both," he explained. "Keep your foot on mine while we play, and you'll have no trouble matching my tempo."

"I won't be able to stop laughing!" she insisted amidst more breathless giggling. Her laughter was awfully infectious.

There was a brief moment where the lights in the room seemed blindingly bright, where the sound of her mirth echoed inside his chest, and the happiness in her eyes burned him like a beacon. These feelings of carefree affection and of being home were so strong that Carlisle wondered if he had ever truly felt them before; if everything he had ever felt until now had been just a shadow of those feelings. He had been cheated of their true wonders until he had Esme and her breathless, heartwarming laughter this close beside him. Carlisle thought for that moment that he may have never felt this genuinely jubilant tin his entire life.

"Come on now." He encouraged her to place her hands on the piano, laughing along with her as he took her fingers one by one and set them on the individual keys. Though the quivers in her hands were surely the result of her laughter and nothing more, Carlisle couldn't help but hope that his lingering touch had kept the remnants from fading.

He didn't need to place her fingers on each of those keys. Esme knew very well by now where she was to begin before playing the song.

But she still wasn't stopping him.

In fact she was being completely cooperative under his manipulation.

"Ready?" he at last whispered, letting his hands hover above hers for a few more seconds before he let go.

She nodded and he pulled his hands away.

The touch of her fingers was still weak on the keys as she began to play. He watched her carefully even while he joined her, entirely ignorant of his own part and fixated on hers. Slowly, her hands seemed to be gaining confidence, feeding off of his energy, understanding the rhythm as he tapped his foot, carrying her with him.

Her foot resting on his was the lightest load to lift. Her leg was brushing against his as he moved - that same leg she had broken, the same one he had fixed. It touched him repeatedly, knocking against his calf, rubbing his knee, hanging dependently onto him while he shifted to reach the pedals.

As if what was happening beneath the piano were not fascinating enough, even greater wonders were occurring above it.

They were playing this song the way it was meant to be played. It was sparkling with energy, so full and uplifting he felt it inside his heart. They were communicating through their given parts, having a beautifully intimate conversation through their chosen notes. For once Carlisle wished that the song was not so short. He wished they had been forced to learn an endless melody, so his hands would be trapped in these same harmonious chords with Esme's hands forever.

But alas, all songs must come to end. This ending came about soft, slow, and peaceful. When the room was thrumming with contented silence, Esme turned to stare up at Carlisle, her lips open and eyes filled with awe.

"That was—"

"—Nearly flawless, I think," he agreed proudly.

Esme at last rewarded him with her beguiling, lopsided smile. Beneath the piano, she pressed her foot into his teasingly. He would never tell her the unmentionable way his body reacted to that one innocent nudge of her foot against his.

"Who would have thought something so silly could be such a big help?"

"Certainly not _me_," Edward's surprised voice interjected.

"Oh, did you hear us, Edward?" Esme was practically bouncing in her seat. "Even you have to admit we did well for our first try!"

Carlisle caught the look in his son's eye as he responded. "Yes, you did well."

Carlisle knew Edward's response was meant entirely for him, but that did not mean his work for this night was over yet.

_Edward, tell us to leave._ _I want to take her outside with me._

Sliding his hand casually along the sleek edge of the piano, Edward walked towards them with a knowing smirk. "And now that you've succeeded in your first assignment, the master would like to return to his sanctuary," he said smoothly.

_Thank you, son. _Carlisle marked one last significant glance before he took Esme's hand and rose from the bench. "Then we'd best leave the master in peace," he uttered agreeably before closing the door.

The darkness of the hallway fed Carlisle's excitement as he tugged Esme along with him into the deserted ballroom. The soft strains of the piano in the neighboring room filled the space with an enchanted, ghostly sort of atmosphere. Esme's unfinished murals glistened between the golden frames of the walls, the green paint deliciously oppressive in the dark, like walking through a thick rainforest at night.

Carlisle was reminded of the night months ago when they spoke of traveling to South America together. It excited him to think that walking with Esme through uncharted rainforests did not just have to be a fantasy. It could be real one day, if they both wanted it to be.

Every minute they spent together, especially now, seemed to be driving him closer to fulfilling these abandoned dreams. As far as Carlisle could tell, Esme had no plans or intentions to leave him. She was free to remain with him for as long as she wanted, and she was consciously choosing to spend forever with him.

Carlisle's private smile was protected by the dark as he watched Esme tiptoe around the crooked shadows cast by the windows. She followed a predictable path as she avoided dipping her toes directly in the moonlight. He subconsciously did the same while he walked behind her; everything they did felt so _right _when what they did was the same.

"Remember how astonished you were when I first painted over those murals on the walls over here?" she asked suddenly, nodding toward the murals on the western wall of the ballroom.

He chortled fondly at the recollection of Esme flinging green paint over the faces of Rococo wallflowers. "I certainly wasn't expecting it," he admitted sheepishly.

"I know," she confirmed with a grin. "Thinking back on it now, I realize I mostly just wanted to get a reaction from you."

Carlisle was somewhat fascinated that she would so openly confess this to him. Perhaps there was something disarming about being in the darkness together. He would usually find himself aching for the company of a candle in the dark, but with Esme, having a candle seemed fairly pointless. She gave off so much light on her own.

"Well, something much better came of it, I'd say," he murmured absently.

She nodded a few times to herself, slowly pacing before her art with a critical eye before she edged her way over to the corner of the room.

"Does the chandelier work?" she questioned, fishing around behind the door for the lighting knob.

"Yes, it does." He rushed up behind her and eagerly reached across her shoulder. "Here..."

He extended his reach so that their arms could mingle in the dark corner for a few moments. Carlisle prolonged his search for the knob in question so that he could keep brushing against her as he did. He bit his lip to keep from smiling as he feigned struggle in finding it, overjoyed when Esme generously grasped his hand and led him to what he was searching for.

He turned the knob clockwise and the room was filled with heavenly light.

Esme's frantic response to the welcoming brightness confused him. "On second thought, turn the light off," she demanded, flustered.

"But why?" He looked around the room, seeing nothing that should cause unease when properly lit. "I'd like to look at your work," he said gently. "I can see it much better this way."

"Oh, but that's why you need to shut the light off," she sighed as if the reason were obvious. "It looks nicer when you can't see all of the imperfections."

"I see no imperfections," he boldly stated. And he was surely not just referring to her artwork.

Her eyes told him she may have known that.

Then the light flickered off.

"But you would if you looked more closely," she said in her soft, throaty voice.

With a heavy sigh, he murmured thoughtfully. "Only the artist herself will see her work as anything less than perfect."

"That's not always true," Esme argued.

"It is for you, Esme," he chuckled, sprinkling lightness over their conversation. He moved in closer, cornering her unintentionally as he begged in a whisper, "Turn the light back on."

Surprised at the quickness with which she obeyed him, Carlisle turned his gaze to the room around him, dumbfounded as to how she could have wished to hide it all from him.

No imperfections stood out to his eyes. He was still a man of his word.

"It's coming along beautifully," he said honestly.

Predictably, she ducked her head. "If you say so."

Fighting the unreasonable urge to take Esme's chin between his hands and lift her hanging head, Carlisle sidled out from behind her, his chest brushing her back as he moved aside. His lap came into the briefest contact with her bottom as he passed her, and it did dangerous things to his control. Thinking the chilly evening would be advantageous to him right about now, he politely requested that she join him outside for a while.

"Outside?" She furrowed her brows as she glanced out the window.

"Yes," he whispered, confused until he guessed the nature of her concern. "You aren't still uncomfortable with that, are you?"

"No...not really," she murmured, but she still looked uncertain.

He smiled reassuringly. "I'll be right beside you the whole time," he promised.

After a deep breath, Esme nodded and followed him through the doors onto the moonlit porch. It was a brisk night, but nowhere near as unbearably frigid as the week before had been. From the corner of his eye, Carlisle watched as Esme hugged herself, shivering predictably from cold. There was something unfathomably irresistible about her when she was rubbing her arms and chattering her teeth. It made her seem more human.

He found her display charming, but he knew she wouldn't understand it if he'd tried to explain it to her. It was just one of those things.

She quirked an eyebrow as she caught him chuckling at her. "What is it?"

"You," he said simply, eager for her reaction. "Out here...in the cold."

She furrowed her eyes and cocked her head.

"You're always shivering, dear," he said softly as his eyes flickered down to her bare feet.

"It's thirty degrees out here," she protested in a high voice, "and I haven't even got any stockings on!"

He laughed patiently. "Oh, but we're made for all extremes of temperature. We've just pampered ourselves by keeping to the house for so long," he explained to her. "The trick is to wait a few moments; let your body adjust."

"I've tried that before," she sighed, "but it never works. There must be something wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Carlisle insisted kindly, shaking his head with a smile. "Just relax. Don't try to fight the cold. Just let it envelop you for a while."

His voice tapered off peacefully as he left her with a moment to close her eyes and submit to the coldness around her. Her stubborn shivers became more violent during the first few seconds, then he watched as they slowly disappeared the longer she waited.

Her body looked even more exquisite in the silvery flood of the moon. Dressed in nothing but that satiny blue dress, she looked to be draped in bits of sky, the bells of her short sleeves flowing gently around her shoulders in the wind. The shadows cast a pleasing violet tint to her tawny hair, an icy lavender blush to her cheeks and delicate eyelids. But her lips were the worst of all - plump, pouting, and ever so slightly open in a way that positively killed him. They were dark against the powdery white of the rest of her face, like petals dipped in wine. The need to reach out and touch her smooth white skin was eating away at him, but he was savoring the torment. Her eyes were closed, and this was as much a curse as it was a blessing for him. By closing her eyes, Esme granted him the power to stare at her in as many indecent and lingering ways as he craved. His appetite was strong, particularly when she was served to him with a coating of seductive moonlight. He could not have looked away even if she_ had_ opened her eyes.

"Can you feel it?" he asked in a hushed voice.

He should have been asking if she could feel the cold leaving her body...but what he was really asking was not so innocent.

He was truly asking her, _'Can you feel my gaze on you?'_

And this would have accomplished much the same thing.

If she had known the places he had been looking while her eyes were covered by blissful darkness, she _would _have found her warmth just as well. Yes, he would have made her warm in an entirely different way.

Esme nodded absently in response to his two-toned question, her lip lifting in a dreamy half-smile of sorts. "It's almost like the cold is just...melting away..."

There was a lock of hair dangling over her forehead, ever so close to brushing her eyelashes. Carlisle entertained the urge to reach out and gently tuck it behind her ear, but not wanting to risk startling her, he decided to keep his hands to himself.

However, that didn't keep him from moving to stand as close as possible to her while her eyes were still closed. His breath grew heavy as he stood across from her, indescribably pleased by how much taller he felt at this shortened distance. Her eyes opened to find him studying her curiously.

"I should have explained it to you before," he apologized casually, his voice still slightly husky from his study session. "But there was something rather adorable about your fierce need to wear an oversized coat whenever you came outside," he added with an unforgivable smirk.

With a quiet laugh, she finally brushed the errant lock of hair behind her ear, and Carlisle was for a moment irrationally angered that he had not been the one to tuck it back into place. "I may still prefer to wear a coat from time to time," she teased.

To his overeager mind, her innocent remark sounded more like a suggestion. "In that case, you're welcome to borrow mine next time, instead of Edward's," Carlisle offered.

Esme blinked a few times, fighting the temptation to smile. Perhaps she was unsure as to whether he was being serious or only teasing. "I'll keep that in mind," she mumbled under her breath.

A long pause stretched between them as neither could think of how to revive the conversation. Just before it could become painful, Esme piped up, "Edward seemed happy."

Carlisle nodded absently in relief, leaning against the wall as fleeting images of Edward's joyful face filled his mind. "He did."

"He told me that he sometimes has trouble during the holidays," she murmured pityingly. "He's reminded of his family."

"I cannot blame him," Carlisle sighed, pushing his hair back with his fingers. "Edward's parents were tremendously loving. And not only toward him, but with each other as well. Even in the hour of their death, I'd never seen any couple, so ill and so weak, look at each other in that way before."

The vivid memory of Edward Masen Sr. and his intense wife Elizabeth arose in Carlisle's mind, potent as the day he'd first met them. As a pair he could tell they possessed immense devotion for the other. Even when they knew their last days were upon them, they insisted on looking out for their son and each other in any way they could.

Before her husband had passed on, Elizabeth had lingered at his bedside, ill as she was, barely able to hold her back straight while she sat. Her feverish, shamrock green eyes were fixed on his dying form as he slowly withered away before her. She would not leave him until his soul had left his body, her hand like a vice around his wrist until his eyes had shut for eternal slumber.

The image of Elizabeth clutching her husband's hand was one that haunted Carlisle for years. It was almost perfect enough to be a painting, full as it was with tragic emotion and brutal sentimentality. Elizabeth's sickly figure still boasted an unmatched grace in her silent acceptance.

Carlisle's eyes wandered north to the brilliant moon above him, his mind wondering hopelessly if he would ever experience that kind of love with Esme. Ever since she was only sixteen years old, he had been able to see it clear as daylight in her eyes – how strong her devotion was, how great her capacity to care without precedent. It left Carlisle aching and anguished to endlessly wonder if Esme would ever spare _him _the gaze of a passionate lover.

It was a selfish thing to desire when she was already staring at him quite intimately. And each day she seemed more forward with her gaze, allowing it to linger longer, to look more intently at him when she thought he didn't notice.

But Carlisle always noticed.

As did his son.

"Edward lost a very loving, very close-knit family," he said at last, breaking his pensive stream of thoughts before they turned painful.

"Unlike us," Esme said starkly.

Carlisle looked up, surprised by her remark, but not disagreeing. In his defense, he knew they had shared many of the same experiences regarding their history. The lack of support from their families, the loneliness, their uncanny ability to attract bitter attitudes from those around them no matter how much compassion they showed.

"I don't pretend to be any more or less broken than Edward is," Carlisle whispered darkly. "However I do believe he lost much more than I did when he entered this life." He hesitated before continuing, his eyes intense as he looked over to Esme. "And I believe _you _lost even more than both of us."

Her eyes widened marginally. "Carlisle, that's not—"

His hand lifted before she could speak any further. It would only break his heart to hear her say it. "Shh…Esme, please don't deny this," he whispered.

"But I _chose_ to end my life, Carlisle," she insisted, placing peculiar emphasis on the words. "If I'd had anything to lose I would have chosen to live. You had your life stolen from you – a rug swept out from underneath your feet." Her eyes dropped to the ground as she illustrated the gesture in a swift motion of one hand. Her eyes lifted to meet his as she finished softly, "I had… I had my life restored…"

Too many emotions were fighting, deep in the pit of his belly, jousting one another like valiant warriors, following the beat of Esme's beautiful voice. Her words ignited a violent conflict within him, and for a moment Carlisle was speechless as he failed to chaperone the war raging inside of him. He could feel the dreaded remnants of his accent twisting his tongue, the temptation to use poetic pronouns when he was expected to reply.

After a few calming breaths, Carlisle's raging emotions dropped their swords and surrendered. Esme was waiting for the truth, and that was what he would give her, whether the battle would be bloody or not.

"It was a dark gift I gave to you, Esme," he murmured, pressing his hand behind his back to keep it from straying to his hip. "But I am most fiercely sincere when I tell you it was given in good will."

"I never doubted that it was." Her voice was quiet, maternal, like the comforting coo of a dove as she stepped towards him without threat, her arm outstretched ever so slightly. "But you seem to still feel guilty for it."

Carlisle breathed deeply, tasting the stirring, smoky scents of the winter night. "I'm trying to let go of my guilt." His voice crackled under the pressure of his churning emotions, and he looked down for a brief instant to regain his composure. Something so simple should not have been tempting him to cry in front of her. "It is something I will always struggle with. But I _am _trying."

Esme's responsive smile was warm and full of understanding. It made his heart feel burdensome and heavy in his chest.

"One day you'll let go," she uttered with such conviction, such sureness he had to believe her. He thought he saw her hand twitch forward as if to touch his face, but she never made the contact.

He blamed it on his imagination.

But he was burning for her touch now, and because he could not bear the thought of being denied that touch, he raised his own fingers to brush them against his jaw and soothe the need.

"Perhaps," he whispered. It was just shy of being a promise.

Esme's stare was too strong for him - like a robust drink for a man who had already endured one glass too many. Her eyes were stunning, glittering like secret-filled garnets under the watercolor beams of the moon. No other woman could make Carlisle feel like a mighty hero and a humble sinner with just one glance. He was unmasked by the moonlight, his soul bared for her to delve inside as deeply as she pleased.

So many times Esme had been the shy one when they locked gazes, but this time he was the one losing all grips on the world around him. Drowning was not the proper word for it. When people drown, they are struggling to resurface. The last thing Carlisle wanted was to resurface from the thrilling ocean of Esme's gaze.

"Merry Christmas," she murmured as the twelfth chime of the grandfather clock confirmed her greeting.

Carlisle's hand crept beneath his collar, twisting the chain of his golden cross around his weakest finger.

"Christ is born," was his reverent reply.


	23. Why Candles are Holy

**Why Candles are Holy**

_This flashback tells the story of how Carlisle came to believe candles have a holy power about them. It involves a human experience he had when he was very young. Here, eight-year-old Carlisle is in the church of his youth, where he meets an old man who enlightens him to the spiritual symbolism found in the candle. I have also tried to touch on Carlisle's fear of loneliness here as well. _

_The characters in this chapter are speaking what is called "Early Modern English," and for that reason the dialog in this chapter might be a bit challenging for some._

* * *

The church was cold at night. Even during the warmer seasons, the air felt chilly between the heavy stone walls. Between the walls of a church was not an unpleasant place to be trapped, but it would have felt a little closer to heaven if it were just a bit warmer. One would think the presence of God would bring warmth and light to such a cold and dark place…

There is one corner of the chapel where the shadows are the deepest and the chill is the most frigid. Those who pass it wonder that there exists such a place in this holiest of homes. But with a closer look, the shadows seem to mollify, revealing the figure of a scrawny young boy, dressed in brown robes, with tousled blond hair.

The men and women who attend services recognize this boy. Over the years he has acquired an astounding popularity for one so shy and quiet. He keeps to his corner, though he longs to be out among the people. They wonder why he feels the need to hide in God's presence. But they do not know just _who _the little boy is hiding from.

Perhaps they would come to know his secret if they stayed after dark. Perhaps they would see their pastor cross into those shadows, and they would hear him calling for the boy – his son.

"Carlisle," he called the name proudly, and it somehow did not fit with the face who so loyally responded.

So soft-spoken was the boy, many women had come to pity him as being impaired of speech. His pale, pleading eyes were a challenge for any female to ignore. It was painfully obvious how deeply this boy wished for a mother.

And so, one most compassionate member of the church attended to the child's unspoken need. Her name was Patience. Some would say it was her generous heart that taught the boy every way to be kind.

Carlisle's young heart was glowing with joy when Patience knelt before him and showed him her eyes. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his father's church. Something special set her apart from the rest of the congregation. Carlisle had often seen her eyes fill with tears when she watched men being persecuted in the streets. While the pastors had encouraged such treatment of iniquitous men, Patience had quietly drawn her face away, unable to bear watching.

Carlisle's father had forced his son to watch the way the wicked were damned for righteousness' sake. He watched and listened to the red fury of the burnings, the hollow symphony of stone beatings, the quick, quiet whip of the hangings. Carlisle knew the men and women accused of witchcraft were evil, but the images he had seen of their suffering always haunted him when he returned to the church at night.

So many men were unbothered by the hangings, but Patience was an anomaly. When Carlisle had seen this young woman turn away, he was inspired to turn away himself.

_But only a woman could turn away from gruesome truths. For a woman this was acceptable, but for a man... _

One day, perhaps when he was brave enough, Carlisle decided he would run to the defense of those men who were tortured. He would stand between them and the bright faces of their enemies, summoning peace between the two sides.

Yes, he would do this. One day, when he was brave.

But for now he stayed silent. As a child, he spoke very little, but he was obedient when he was called upon. Patience told him it was fine to speak his worries. She was the only person Carlisle had felt ever truly cared for him.

"Art thou unwell, young one?" Patience asked as she came across Carlisle one evening in the dark chapel.

Carlisle shook his head from side to side, his clear blue eyes wide in the darkness.

"Come out from there, Carlisle," Patience whispered with a gentle laugh. "Why must a boy hide in God's home?"

Wringing his small hands in front of him, the sandy-haired child reluctantly pulled himself out of the shadowy corner. "I do not wish for Father to discover me," he revealed in a hushed voice.

Patience's deep eyes flickered with pity as she watched the boy take one quivering step forward.

"Hast thou come to speak to God?" his painfully soft voice inquired.

"No, sweet child." Her eyes glimmered in somber amusement as she paused, teasing his formality. "I came to see thee."

Carlisle's mouth fell open in surprise. Patience had come to the church many times for worship alone, but she had never come with the sole intention of meeting _him_. His legs felt weak as he wondered why she desired to speak with him at such a late hour. She must have had something very important to say.

"How might I serve thee?" Carlisle asked timidly as he came to stand before her.

The young woman shook her head and knelt before the boy to show him her stirring brown eyes. "I beg none from thee but thine ears."

Rapt with attention, Carlisle watched her delicate face grow pale in regret. "I am to be wed in but a fortnight, young Carlisle."

"Wed?" The word was a broken breath on his frail lips.

Patience nodded slowly, her eyes troubled. "Aye... He is a good man, but he has asked that I move away with him."

The blond boy was silent for a long moment, his lip trembling as he realized this might be the last time he could look upon her loving face. A single tear slipped down his cheek.

"Will I never see thee again, Patience?"

"Oh, Carlisle." Her smooth voice faltered as she took the boy into her arms. "My regrets are sore; I shall miss thee more than any other."

"I will be all alone once thou hast gone..."

The woman's heart felt a ferocious pang as two small hands gripped weakly to her shoulders.

"Hush now," she soothed, grasping the child's back. "Another will find thee."

"Take me away," he pleaded, his fingers clinging more fiercely as his voice fell quiet, desperate. "I want to come with thee."

Foolishly, Carlisle believed Patience could be the mother he never had. Though it was a far-fetched wish to have, he clung to it with all his might in that moment, for fear that it would be lost upon him forever.

"Carlisle…" Her hands tightened possessively, wrought tense with the temptation to save him as he begged it of her.

"Please," he whimpered again.

Her eyes welled with hot tears, and her stomach filled with lead. "Oh, dearest child. I cannot."

His small voice was warm on her ear. "I have no home."

Firmly but gently, Patience loosened their embrace to lock eyes with the boy. "Carlisle Cullen, the house of God is a home far greater than any man could ask for." She lifted her hand to the walls, to the dancing red candles in the chapel. "Look, child! See where thou art! God leaves none alone."

"But I cannot speak to God," Carlisle whispered morosely.

"Why ever not?"

"He never answers my words," the boy mourned. "Father tells me that God cannot be bothered by one as young as I."

Patience shook her head. "I do not believe it true, Carlisle." When she saw the boy's face still wrought with doubt, she bent before him and spoke in secret, "Tonight, I will tell God to listen for a young boy's voice."

Carlisle's heart swelled with silent hope. "Will He hear me?"

"He will, child," she assured as her lips lay blessing on his furrowed brow. "And He will never leave you alone."

Patience swept the tears away from Carlisle's eyes until she found his feeble smile. About to take another embrace, both were startled by the frigid burst of wind which blasted through the doors of the church.

An astringent voice bolted into the open hall. "Bring to me every able man! We shall purge the village only with a force of greater number!"

"Aye, Father!" an eager young man answered.

Carlisle shuddered at the familiar voice of the former, fearful of the strict face who sought him in the shadows. "Why dost thou hide there, Carlisle?" the cloaked man demanded, the displeasure lazy but bold on his handsome face.

"I hide nowhere, my Father," his son answered in his slight and quiet voice.

The elder raised his brow in warning as his piercing eyes flickered to the young woman who stood with her hand on his son's shoulder.

"What be the meaning of this?" he asked lowly, gesturing between the two with one large hand.

Though neither spoke at first, the woman knew herself to be the braver of the two. Setting one foot forward, she faced the pastor with a quiet power in her humble brown eyes.

"I have come to give my farewells, Father Cullen."

"Thou must lack wisdom to be seen at such an hour," the pastor chided. "Be gone at once! I cannot afford delay!"

Patience said nothing. Her back was straight and her arms were rigid as she walked slowly past the candles on her way to the door. Her face shone in the dim light for an instant as she lingered in the threshold, and through the solemn crowd of tiny flames, she caught the eye of the boy who watched her from the shadows. Her eyes were bright behind the candlelight, and Carlisle felt the quiet waves of her strength being sent to him through the flickering tongues of fire.

Thin tendrils of smoke twirled away as she set out into the cold night, and she was gone forever.

Carlisle felt small and alone as he faced his father, but Patience's absence had not left as ripe a sting as he had worried it would. No, he felt just a little stronger, just a little surer in spite of his moistened cheeks.

"A man does not cry in the face of change." The father spoke more softly now, understanding of his son's plight, but not quite tender. "The world is an unjust place, but he who fulfills his duties in the Lord's affection shall receive great reward in His heavenly kingdom."

"This I must believe, Father," Carlisle recited as he had learned. The response was so familiar, so visceral now, it came forth without being summoned. It was white noise of the tongue, but his father was so pleased to hear it.

"We charge the wicked on this night," he continued with a nod to the bolted door. "My son shall join me one day… But now he must find his chambers, for the hour is late."

With a hasty nod, Carlisle moved at once to stand before his father, dwarfed by the man's imposing height. His dark robes all but swallowed the light around them as he held a hand over the boy's blond brow.

"Forgive me, my father," Carlisle whispered.

Above his small head, though he could not see it, his father's eyes were filled with the fleeting light of pride. The voice that echoed inside the hall was no longer rough, but quiet and sincere. "Forgiveness is granted, my son."

As he opened the doors, the wind let itself in with an icy howl. The pastor christened a torch and held it high over his head, fighting the blizzard that beat against him. Into the night he went, with the fire of God to light his way.

Carlisle lingered in the silent hall for a long while, listening to the wind beat against the stone walls outside, to the echoes of Patience's gentle voice in his head. The sting of her departure crept upon him as he stood before the waving candle flames, a new tear being born in the corner of his eye.

"Dost thou hear me, my Lord?" he asked in a despondent whisper.

"I hear thee," a low, slightly rugged voice sounded from close behind him.

Carlisle whipped around in alarm to find not God, but a haggard old man in a frayed brown robe. The man wore a long gray beard, and his face was of aged leather. His eyes were so small, they were nearly missed at first glance, but when one looked close enough, one could see the color there, resting between the wrinkles – a wise spark of green beneath bushy gray brows.

"Thou hast seen the faces in the candles, eh?" he supposed cryptically.

"Faces?" Carlisle repeated, breathless and confused.

"Aye, aye..." The man nodded his head slowly, his eyes simmering slyly as he looked to the offering hold. "All who have passed on from this earth will appear in the flames. Those who look closely may find them there."

"All who have died?" Carlisle asked in wonder. "Even those whom we have never met?"

"I would not speak it if it were not true!" the man barked in glee. "Have a look, now!" he encouraged, knuckling the boy's back until he was face to face with the line of candles.

Deep in Carlisle's wistful young mind, the beautiful face of Patience appeared, her raven hair brightened to resemble threads of sun, her affectionate brown eyes paling to match a shallow pond. The face he had conjured was stunning, not for her beauty, but for the unconditional love he felt while staring into her eyes, while soaking in her smile. She was his heroine, the keeper of his needy but naive heart.

But though this face was striking in his imagination, Carlisle could not find it hovering in any flame before him.

"I cannot see her," he whispered dejectedly.

"Who ye be looking for, lad?"

Carlisle breathed in deeply to hold back the sobs. "My mother."

"Hmmm," the old man mumbled in sympathy. "There be a hollow heart for thee."

Carlisle blinked over his tears as he hung his head, his fingers idly picking at the trails of molten wax that leaked from the candles. "I wish I had known her."

"'Tis best not to be wishing for what we cannot have," said the gruff, wise voice behind him.

"Aye. Father says this," Carlisle agreed with a sigh.

"The Father is a wise man."

Carlisle cringed, though he did not know why.  
"I have been told so."

A long silence fell between the two generations in the hold of the church. Eventually, Carlisle turned to his watcher, despair written in his cloudless eyes.

"There be no faces in the candles, sir."

The old man's eyes widened in challenge. "Ahh, but there is one face even a lad cannot miss!" he pointed out, nudging his walking stick against the boy's foot.

Carlisle tilted his head in curiosity. "Whose face is that?"

The man's eyes twinkled in outrage as he stood to his full, hunched height and bellowed, "Why, Christ Himself sayeth, 'I am the light of the world!'" He pointed to the nearest flame with his finger and leaned in closer. "Dost thou not see _His_ face in this here light, boy?"

Mustering all of his hopeful faith, Carlisle squinted at the flickering tongue of light around the wick. He saw its cerulean center, its glaring orange ember, its soft golden halo... but still he saw no face.

Carlisle released a small whimper of discouragement, but the old man did not give up on him.

"Think of it, boy! Some day, even the black streets of London shall be lit from the sky!" He gestured theatrically with his wrinkled hands. "Dost thou wish to be the only one who misses His Holiness in the light?"

"I greatly desire to see God, sir," Carlisle confessed in earnest. "My heart longs for it!"

"Then He will unveil his face before thee," the old man declared, with all the fine triumph of a king.

Suddenly trusting of this mysterious elder's wisdom, Carlisle came closer and asked him, "Hast thou seen the face of God, good sir?"

"Aye, lad. Aye," he said with a knowing smile as he touched the boy's shoulder once. His eyes gave one last mystical flicker before he gathered his robe around him and hobbled silently into the cavernous shadows.

Carlisle burned inside as he was left alone again, knowing he could not return to his chambers to sleep unless he had first seen the face of Christ in these candles. With renewed determination, he brought his curious blue eyes down to the flame, and looked inside… one last time.

And that was the first of many times Carlisle had seen His Likeness in the candle's fire. For when one truly believed, it was the simplest thing in the world to find the face of God.

* * *

**_A/N: _**_Let me know if you liked this little look into Carlisle's past. :)_


	24. Whims of a Miracle Worker

**Whims of a Miracle Worker**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 45: Christmas by Candlelight, Part I" from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

He could hear her scribbling away on her sketchbook not so far behind him. She was watching him, he was almost sure of it. After months of living with a woman it was almost impossible not to be completely aware of those moments when her eyes were on his back.

He could imagine the way her fingers gripped the pencil as she wielded her talent, drawing lines and circles carefully across the page. She was an expert in her craft, and this miraculous ability Esme had to render things from life onto paper was endlessly intriguing to Carlisle. The soft, scratching, smudging sounds she made were now an arousing sort of symphony to his ears. He was captivated by the noises because they came from _her hands. _These were the sounds of miracles being committed in graphite and parchment. Vainly, he wondered if his writing could ever sound like that to a woman. Would Esme ache upon hearing the frantic, scratching sounds he made with his fountain pen as he lovingly raped an empty page with paragraph after paragraph of his most passionate words?

He could almost feel her sinuous skin, her tender lips beneath his own, her silky hair entangled in his fingers. Carlisle was lost, walking in circles – all he could do was try to ignore the pain that coursed through him at the thought of never being able to profess his love for her. His fear was not so much of her rejection now as it was that he was undeserving of such love. Esme's love was not something to be taken with greedy hands. No, Carlisle's deepest worry now was that his reasons for wanting her were all the wrong reasons.

Should his desires prove to be shallow and impure, he would restrain himself forever from ever telling her how he truly felt. These were not the kinds of thoughts an innocent woman like Esme should be made to hear. Yet it was agonizing to watch her savor her newfound contentment and happiness. She was so much like family it now seemed a sin to try and make her anything more than that. She would love him this way, and this would be a safe alternative to his burdensome, thrumming lust. She would be as appreciative and happy as she was now. Esme had been joyous when Carlisle had called her his family, and he could only assume this was all she had wanted since the beginning.

Esme just wanted to find a family. She just wanted a place to belong. She just wanted a pair of arms to take her and hold her close. A voice to say she was loved and cherished and maybe even that she was _needed_.

Carlisle was careful about what he chose to reveal to Esme. Sometimes he worried that she could hear his thoughts as Edward did. Those uncensored bits of daydreams where he pulled her against him and kissed her with abandon. Those fabricated moments where he could touch her with his fingertips, slowly, sensually, down the trembling column of her slender throat, across the delicate ridge of her collarbone, into the aching valley of her breasts.

He would feel the familiar pull deep in his groin, the hunger that filled his chest like warm silk, and the guilt that flooded his stomach like cold lead. Together they made a most agonizing sensation, a mania of love and lust, urges and yearning. Esme was too good, too pure a woman to be thought of in such a way. But it was her goodness and her pureness that entreated his heart to continue craving her. Carlisle _needed_ someone like Esme to complete him, to fill the void in his soul. But this alone was not enough. He wanted to be the same for Esme. He wanted to complete _her_, to fill the void in _her _soul, to fill the void in her heart... and in her body.

The strange appeal of it all was so beautifully infuriating. He desired her, yet he kept it hidden. As much as he hated to admit it, his hiding was in part due to his pride. If he were to approach her with the wrong motives and she were to reject him, he could not live.

And yet there were times he would envision it a bit differently. There were times, bless his underappreciated ego, when he would imagine Esme in exaltation as he let his knee collide with the ground and asked her to be his wife. There were times when he would imagine telling her softly, as she sat sketching by candlelight – to tuck a tendril of her hair aside and whisper, _'You know, I've always loved you'_ into her ear. There were times when his fantasy would outrun him, and he would see himself, strapping and ravenous, chasing after her into a ravine with the wind on his feet. The blaze of their passion would implode as their eyes met, and they would crash together in a fervent storm of crazed kisses, clinging to one another in desperation, asking each other in breathless, raspy voices _why _they had waited for so long.

But all these dreams did to Carlisle was hurt him. For in the end he would always assure himself that his confession of love would tear Esme apart. He would forever worry that the broken woman inside of her would believe his confession to be less than genuine. What if she turned him away out of fear? What if she did not want to risk another marriage? What if her human life had been so scarring that she wanted nothing to do with another husband, regardless of whether she loved the man or not?

Carlisle truly believed that Esme could love him with all her heart yet still refuse him this one step further. To live and love as family, even intimately, was the safe and comfortable option. Marriage was dangerous. It was such a grand elevation, such a far cry from what Carlisle had ever envisioned for himself that he almost feared his own sanity in entering such a union. He almost wondered if _he _would be the one to doubt himself when the moment came.

It was because of these fears that a part of him always wanted to wait longer. Despite his desperation, he had lived for _centuries _in longing – he was used to the feeling. Even just having Esme at his side was a treasure. He could stand to wait those few extra weeks, maybe a month or two to be sure that this was what he wanted – more importantly, to be sure that this was what _she _wanted.

He was looking out for hints and signs from her, but he often feared that he was biased by his own foolish hopes. A flutter of eyelashes could only ever mean one thing to him. If she ducked her head, he automatically assumed she was being coy. If she smiled that delicious little lopsided smile, he believed she might have been flirting. It was impossible to trust his own judgment in this situation, and so Carlisle finally resolved to let things flow as they would on their own. He was not going to preoccupy himself with every little move Esme made. If he only managed to keep his eyes on hers and truly listen to what she had to say, then perhaps he would be more apt to solve her puzzles when she revealed them unawares.

Carlisle watched his son's face twist and twitch in response to each flagrant thought that perused through his head. He wished he could better block the thoughts that caused Edward agony, but he was able to cover only a select few before they slipped past his barriers. Edward's hands went faster on the piano, hoping to drown out the hushed intimacies his father failed to hide.

"I'm almost out of sketchbook paper."

Esme's lovely voice broke Carlisle out of his unholy reverie, awakening his recently laid plans to be more attentive to her needs.

He stared at her in surprise, unable to keep his curious eyes from wandering to her lap where her sketchbook lay open. Her hand snapped the cover closed as soon as she noticed him staring, and he tried not to look embarrassed.

"Come with me," he told her casually, leading her into the hall. "I'll find you something in my study."

She followed obediently, the pattern of her footsteps so familiar by now, they nearly matched his own. He smiled to himself as he made a scene of searching the entire room, just to prolong her presence in his study enough that the air would be full of her scent when she left. She stood watching him, patiently waiting for him to come across something, and she didn't even know he was taking forever on purpose.

He felt badly for making her wait so long for such a selfish reason, and it wasn't long before he gave in and brought her one of his empty journals.

"Here, how is this? It's actually a journal, but it hasn't been written in yet," he added as he handed it to her.

She looked inside, then up at him in question. "Parchment?"

"It's...a bit aged," he admitted, slightly embarrassed.

But when he saw her grin, that all changed.

"It's wonderful," she declared.

"Really?"

"Yes—oh—it's perfect!" The utter joy in her voice was like a most potent drug. He could have listened to her irresistible mirth for the rest of his life and never grow tired of it. "I love it."

The word 'love' awakened a little spark in his belly. "You do like antiques, don't you?" he teased.

"You should know that. I do like _you._"

It was the unexpectedness of her statement that caught him off guard. The look in her eyes told him that she certainly did not only like him because he was an antique. He was thrilled, and even slightly impressed that she had chosen to say something so direct, so mildly out of her character.

"Ah ha," he laughed lightly, feeling a heat spread beneath his collar. "What wit you have, Esme."

She smiled absently as she pressed her hand to the journal, feeling the cool leather with her sensitive skin. His eyes followed the motion guiltily, wondering what it felt like beneath her palm.

"Now I can use something for drawing _and _writing," she said as she held up her old sketchbook for comparison.

Resisting the urge to scoff with disapproval, Carlisle asked carefully, "Is this what you have been using as a sketchbook?" He gestured to the damaged book in her right hand.

"Hm? Oh, this?" She bit her lip and turned it around to let him see both the front and back, as if showing off just how torn up it really was. "Yes, it was blank when I found it under my bed upstairs. I've been using it for a while now. Whenever I see something that inspires me I like to sit back and draw for a little bit," she said, her tone almost proud.

"But this...It's so...erm, worn out," Carlisle said sympathetically as he reached for the book. As he held it in his hand, he feared it would suddenly crinkle into dust from the pressure of his gentle grip. "I would be happy to buy you a new one. There's a place in town that sells very high quality art supp—"

"I like it this way," she interrupted assuredly. "It has character. Artistic things _should _have character." She took the book from his hand and cradled it like a child in her arm, a fond smile on her face.

The quote sparked a memory in Carlisle's mind – a bright, enthusiastic male face beneath a mop of curly black hair – a young man he had once met in his travels across Europe, who wielded his paintbrush like a fencer wields a sword. Marco was his name. He never spoke of a surname and he was as proud to be a poor man as he was to be an artist.

"I suppose that's true," Carlisle consented with a sigh. "There was an artist I knew in Prague who once said something similar."

_Art is not beautiful by law, _Marco had said. _Art is character; art is pure, unaltered character,_ _whether ugly or appealing._

"And was his sketchbook just as lovely as mine?" Esme interrupted the memory with an impish grin.

Carlisle smiled as he closed his eyes and saw the image of Marco's scrawny arms struggling to carry his collection of sketchbooks across the banks of Vltava.

"Worse," he recalled with a reminiscent chuckle. "You know, he used to gather things he thought he could use for inspiration and keep them between the pages of his sketchbooks. They were so overstuffed that he could barely carry them comfortably."

Esme's eyes sparkled. Carlisle supposed she'd found the idea of an 'overstuffed sketchbook' quite appealing.

"What kinds of things did he gather?" she queried.

"Oh, I don't know..." Carlisle remembered the way Marco would frolic through private libraries in search of good inspirational materials. He was shameless as he went from shelf to shelf, tearing pages out of priceless books when the keepers' backs were turned. Grinning, Carlisle wondered how impressed Esme would be if he vandalized his own library.

He didn't give himself any more time to think of the consequences before reaching up for a random history book and ripping a page straight from its middle. To his strange delight, Esme gasped in shock.

"Like this—" he said stealthily, stealing Esme's sketchbook to hide the page inside.

"What do I do with this?" she laughed, staring down at the picture in front of her.

He shrugged, leaning back against the bookshelf. "Just keep collecting things you think you might be able to use. Eventually the book becomes a log of where you've been. You take a piece of every room in this house with you and eventually something will strike your inspiration."

"I think I'll do that," she conceded, her eyes already shining with a million wonderful ideas.

He smiled helplessly. "I thought you would."

Briefly debating whether he should explain how he himself made use of this method, Carlisle decided it would be best to share his own creativity with Esme.

"For the past few decades I've been doing something similar at the hospital," he said. "Every time one of my patients passes away, I like to take something that reminds me of them."

He felt her eyes follow him as he walked over to his desk and retrieved his doctor's bag. "I put them in here," he said softly as she came up beside him to peer inside. With careful hands, he lifted each precious item out of its hiding place to show her in the light. He placed them one by one on the surface of the desk – Lydia Sullivan's lily, Gregori Gardelli's wristwatch, Paul Wendelsett's shoelace, and Annaliese Harkhurst's hair barrette. Carlisle's throat tightened as his fingers felt the cool blue stones of the last treasure. Placing them down on the desk in front of Esme, he felt as though he were truly taking out bits of his soul for her to see.

"Oh, Carlisle," she sighed his name, and his heart responded wildly. "To think of all those people you treated..." she mused, reaching out to slide the shoelace between her delicate fingers. "Keeping a piece of each of them _is_ truly artwork, you know that?"

He tried to nod, but could only stare at her in awe. Her fingers twisted the lace, weaving a pattern that went nowhere. She held it as if it meant something to _her_, as if she could feel its significance from the way she was touching it. She looked up at him with her shining, doe-like eyes and whispered, "Doesn't it make you sad?"

He swallowed hard as his hand wandered down to join hers. "Sorrow is just another part of life like any other." His fingers met with hers, burning with the need to twist and weave the way she did. He wished their fingers could dance together, tangle endlessly and never let the other go.

He wondered if Esme had shared this wish, for as his hand reached for hers, Esme let the string drop to the desk, accepting his fingers in its place. He let his fingers linger between hers for a thrilling moment before he reached down for the forgotten shoelace, placing it back with its family.

"But we mustn't speak of sadness on Christmas," he said softly, trying to brighten the somber mood. "We should be looking for inspiration."

Esme's head tilted up to marvel at the endless walls of books. "Inspiration..."

"Yes, we need to find you some more scraps for your sketchbook," he said dutifully, rubbing his hands together as he rounded the corner of his desk.

"You won't stop until it falls apart completely, will you?" she giggled and he joined her laughter.

"It's already hanging by a thread, dear." Spotting the medical book on his desk, he reached down without a thought to open it and rip a page from the back. "How about this?" he asked as he handed it to her blindly.

A dimple peeked out of Esme's soft cheek as she smiled wryly down at the image in her hands. "Oh, lovely. I'm sure I can use a diagram of the male reproductive system in one of my paintings."

His stomach twisted in embarrassed shock, his spine nearly paralyzed as he came forward in a panic. "Is that—I didn't think—Wait..."

"I was teasing you," she said, her face breaking into a merciful smile as she turned the page around. "It's a picture of the human skeleton."

Something inside of Carlisle was genuinely irritated that Esme had caused him humiliation on purpose. But there was that gleam in her eye; that gentle, mocking side to her soft smile. In the absolute strangest way, it made her all the more desirable to him. As if he was attracted to her _because_ she had embarrassed him.

Having overheard their humorous misunderstanding, Edward's robust laughter sounded from the other room.

"I think my son's behavior is rubbing off on you," Carlisle darkly muttered to Esme before he turned away from her teasing expression. Eager to change the subject, he opened his desk drawer in search of something to distract her.

"I think my taste in art is rubbing off on _you_, Doctor Cullen," she all but gasped as he presented her with a scrap of antique lavender fabric. "Where did this come from?"

"Promise you won't laugh."

She looked up at him, her eyes piercing his as she slipped her fingers around the scrap and tugged it effortlessly from his limp hand. Again, she wore that gentle, mocking sort of expression, as if she were keeping a deep, delicious secret from him.

Carlisle swallowed hard and said, "That's from a jacket I owned in 1893."

Her laughter was so glorious he almost wondered why he'd made her promise not to laugh. Those tiny, trilling chuckles, so high in pitch they barely sounded like they matched her speaking voice.

"I'm not sure this color is quite befitting for your skin tone," she giggled, feigning thoughtfulness as she held it up to his neck. Her knuckles grazed the column of his throat and a shiver raced through his chest.

"I only wore it once," he protested, reaching for her hand to tug it away from his vulnerable neck. "And I met many members of French high society when I did."

She looked as though she were resisting the urge to roll her eyes, and this filled him with fleeting fury. "I'm sure you made quite an impression on them," she murmured under her breath.

He defended his concern with a forced smile, trying to assure himself she was only making a joke. "Is that meant to be derogatory?"

"No, not at all," she said. She was sincere, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "It would be easy for anyone to remember your face."

Carlisle stood perfectly still as he felt the pressure of Esme's eyes traveling slowly over the angles of his face. Whether her attentions were of appraisal or critique, he couldn't bother to care. All he could do was silently savor the way her gaze toyed with his feelings, the way she stared so intensely at him... as if he were artwork behind a glass case which she could not touch.

Feeling a trickle of discomfort at her attention, Carlisle tipped his head down, bashfully lowering his eyes. He could only guess that his expression had snapped her out of her lingering stare.

"If only you'd saved more of this jacket, I probably could have made a dress out of the material," she said suddenly, back to her teasing.

"But if the color is unflattering to the tone of _my _skin, then it wouldn't be any more fitting for you," he pointed out. "We are the same, you know."

Their eyes collided briefly, and it left him burning with the significance of his own words, wondering if she was willing to find it as well. Her lips turned up in a tiny, playful smirk.

"Then find me a nicer color, Carlisle."

An order. A request. A command. That was all it took and his back was already bent over the drawer, his hands buried deep in the forty-year-old brick-a-brack. He tossed some crinkled letters and bottles of ink onto the desk, uncovering a small wooden pen box at the bottom. Esme came up beside him to watch while he took a letter opener and sliced the dark green velvet lining from the inside.

"Oh, yes, that's just what I had in mind," she purred, her eyes twinkling with satisfaction. It made him high to see her so pleased, and Carlisle suddenly found himself aching to cut away at every other piece of fabric he could find in this house to give to her. He looked down fondly as she pressed the velvet strip to his wrist, comparing the color of his alabaster skin with the deep green. "Like the forest at night," she murmured, her voice dreadfully raw.

A brief fantasy of Esme lying naked on a quilt of forest green velvet sprung into Carlisle's head. The world around him grew cloudy as he struggled to shake the indecent thought from his mind. He couldn't help but marvel at the poetic phrase she had used so casually to describe the velveteen scrap.

"Do you like poetry, Esme?" he asked, hoping she couldn't hear the brash desperation in his voice.

"Yes," she confessed, and a chill struck him. "Very much."

She had the gall to stare into his eyes again, as if she knew he would be unable to resist her. His every whim was dependent on the intensity of her gaze. She was using all of her most charming weapons on him this evening, and she didn't even realize it...

If Esme liked poetry, then Carlisle was going to give her poetry. And not just any poetry would do.

He was going to give her _his _poetry.

His fingers found his current journal by pure instinct and without even looking, he tore out the page he knew she needed to have.

"Oh, don't, Carlisle."

His heart screamed when she tried to protest him.

"Why not?"

She bit her lip, shifting on her feet. "You're ruining your entire library all so that I can stuff my sketchbook with random pages – it's not right."

"I've read every book in here at least a hundred times before," he exaggerated, shamelessly letting the strains of his accent seep into his speech. He saw her eyes soften as he twisted his vowels, and a small surge of victory filled his chest. "Besides, you'll be making these into something better," he said softly, forcing her to take his handwritten poem.

"Next you're going to tell me that Henry David Thoreau himself handwrote this," she said when she saw the faded, dark brown ink.

Carlisle froze up for an instant, his mind scrambling for a way to cover up the fact that _Doctor Cullen himself _was the author.

"Actually, Oscar Wilde wrote this," he quipped, proud of his ability to maintain a straight face.

His dear Esme uttered a soft little cry of shock, preparing to shove the page back to him as if she feared her touch would mar such a precious piece of paper.

"I'm joking," he said with a hearty laugh. It felt oddly satisfying to see Esme squirm as he had earlier. Not that he was fond of revenge, but Carlisle had to admit that evening out the field was rather sweet.

"I had to get back at you for that 'diagram of a reproductive system' remark somehow," he murmured in a low voice. It felt so ridiculous even saying the words "reproductive system" out loud in Esme's presence. Ridiculous...yet awkwardly appealing.

He did not miss the subtle smile cross her face as he discreetly slipped his poem behind the last page of her sketchbook.

"Sorry about that." She did not look at all sincere, but he forgave her with a charming grin.

"So... Are you going to sketch something on parchment now?" he asked, gesturing to the new sketchbook he had given her.

Her face seemed to glow as she considered the suggestion. "Should I?"

"Please," he whispered, relieving her hands of her old, overstuffed sketchbook. He was conscious that the book he now held in his hand contained all of Esme's most private drawings and notes. The urge to peek inside was overwhelming enough that he was forced to simply put it out of mind. He pressed it hard against the surface of his desk, ignoring the instinctive pull he felt toward it. Before he could accidentally flip its cover, he strode quickly over to the sofa in the center of the room.

"Come sit here," he told her as he pulled the piece of furniture closer to the fireplace. He rearranged the pillows, discreetly spacing them out so that he would have room to sit beside her. Esme settled gracefully into the cushions, crossing her ankles and laying her new sketchbook on her knee.

He realized she did not have anything to draw with, and so he walked quickly back to his desk to retrieve a pencil.

It was such a small pencil. So thin and so light...yet as he held it, it seemed to grow heavier with each step he took closer to the artist where she was sitting patiently, waiting. He held the pencil out for her to take, balancing it on the tips of his fingers as she reached up to accept it. When she smiled at him and stole the pencil from his hand, Carlisle knew that he would be forever baffled as to what had made that moment so meaningful.

He felt the light weight of the pencil leave his fingers as she took it, and she tested its sharpness by briefly tapping the tip with her forefinger.

That was the gesture that stirred him up.

Good Lord, she was an artist – it was something she must have done without even thinking, second nature. He knew it was entirely innocent, and yet Esme had again struck him to his core with the most mundane thing. _Every little thing..._

Flustered and slightly angry with himself for having such a depraved reaction, Carlisle roughly brushed his hands over his thighs and turned to seek refuge by the fireplace.

Gripping the spoke in his hand, he took his frustration out on the burning log, poking it from every angle until more flames burst to life beneath it. The raging heat that spurted from the fire had a surprisingly soothing effect on the sharp sting of his desire. He could always find comfort in the fire's warm embrace.

Carlisle closed his eyes for a long moment and allowed the heat to wash over him, cleansing him. The ache in his belly faded as he listened to the gentle scratch of Esme's pencil on parchment behind him, and his focus shifted to her in mirth rather than stealth. He turned to offer a gentle smile in her direction, but as soon as she caught him staring at her, she paused with her pencil hovering guiltily over the page.

"Don't stop," he nearly whispered, not expecting his voice to come out so raspy. "You were very intense about whatever you were just sketching." He paused, wondering if it was wise to speak so boldly to her. But by the sheen of curiosity in her eyes, he deigned to give his proof. "I could hear it."

He watched intently as her eyes widened, then lowered to the page in her lap. Her expression was loving, yet tinged with fear – as if she were just caught in some shameful act. The fire beside him somehow managed to creep inside his heart, and he slowly discovered that he was burning to see what Esme had drawn. But if he could not see it, then he must at least _know _it.

"What were you drawing?" he asked, his tone deep but gentle.

Her eyes flickered up to him, glistening with the glittery reflection of the dancing fire as she whispered, "You... actually."

He knew it.

But hearing her say it out loud, confirming it with her titillating voice, was unreal.

He also knew that he was smiling, and it might have been making her uncomfortable. But he could not help it. Knowing that the passion in her hand had been harnessed all for _him_ was...incredible. And incredibly arousing.

_Don't think of it._

"Your...position...was...aesthetic," she was muttering, straining to explain herself. It hurt him to see her struggling to find the right words. It hurt him to have to tamp down the glorious little fountains of hope and desire that welled up inside of him at her impromptu confession.

But he pulled through the sweet, sweet pains with a smile as he looked down at his body and shrugged amiably. "If you say so."

She sat up straighter on the couch, her sketchbook sliding down her lap as she leaned forward in earnest. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but—"

"No, not at all!" He raised his hand, shaking his head. "Sometimes things simply strike you," he said with a shrug as he stood up. "It happens to me when I'm sculpting figures. Well, I should say it _used _to happen to me_._"

Carlisle's stomach dropped as he thought of his once fiery infatuation with sculpture. That passion had sadly dimmed over the past few years. Only when he had seen Esme's passion for her arts did he remember what it was like. The need to design, to manipulate, to create.

Sobered from the fire, he crossed the room and sat down next to her.

"Edward said that you stopped making sculptures for a while," she spoke up, looking over at him. He could hear it in her voice; she was trying to be unobtrusive and gentle. It warmed his heart. "What happened?" she asked in a whisper.

He leaned forward, settling his elbows on his legs as he sought strength from the fire.

"It was around the time when we moved here," he said quietly. "I had to leave many of my maquettes behind, and...I don't know, I suppose I never felt like I _needed_ to sculpt anymore. It had always been a way to keep myself from feeling lonely, but now that I share my home with other people..." He looked up into her eyes, stirred by their staggering depths. "I don't feel that need anymore."

He could feel the smile form on his lips, and he could see the way her face had changed when he said the words. She was lost in the fleeting space between the seconds, just as he was.

He dreamed, so briefly, of Esme's body, supple and slender as she lay close to him. Her sketchbook pressed to her belly as she scribbled away in secret while he watched from the pillow beside her. He imagined sliding his fingers around the book, slipping it out of her grasp so that she was forced to drop her pencil and lift her questioning eyes to his face. He hid the book behind him as he drew closer to take her soft cheeks in his hands, and he kissed her peacefully. He gently turned her over beneath him, her warm breasts pressed to his chest, the weight of his hips aching as he settled into the cradle of her welcoming thighs.

The dream was soft and slow, hazy and gentle. It was almost innocent. Dream-Esme blinked at him, her eyes darkened to wine, her lips parted in anticipation of his touch. He brushed his thumb across her lower lip, and she closed her eyes, ready, waiting...

An all-consuming peace filled his heart at the imaginary sight, only to be snatched away by the sound of her voice, real and stirring.

"Well, you can still carve things," she said, continuing from the conversation that seemed so far away now. Her face turned toward the fire, searching its graceful golden flames as she spoke. "It doesn't have to be because you're lonely. It could be because you just want to create something out of nothing."

A soft chuckle came free of his throat, stunned by the feelings they had so in common with one another. "I've wanted that many times," he admitted, looking back to the fire as she did.

"I've always thought that this is what art is," Esme sighed, and he soon heard the scribbling song of her pencil revive itself beside him. "Art _is_ creating something from nothing. Putting life into something that we perceive to be lifeless."

The uncensored poetry, the stark truth that spilled from her lips inspired him like nothing else had. She gasped into the air, turning to stare at him like he was her god. They both saw the same scene, mirrored in the other's eyes, as he buried his mouth in her neck and flooded her body with his venom. He had made Esme eternal, creating life from what was once lifeless. Here, Carlisle realized he _was _still an artist – and Esme was his everlasting, indestructibly beautiful artwork.

"Is that what you call it?" he breathed, barely able to keep focus on her face without drifting into a blissful coma. His fingers itched to pull that sketchbook away from her lap, to look inside it and see how her hands had rendered him on the page. He tried to tame his fingers by clawing at his knee, but he could only do so much to stop the urge from consuming him.

"Yes," she answered him, her eyes looking just as lost.

He closed his eyes briefly, trying to control the need that raged within him. It was such a beautiful feeling, it almost made him weep. His lips smiled absently as he came closer to her, destroying the inches that rested between them until their hips were almost touching. She did not resist him as he reached out with one hand and gently tipped the sketchbook back from her hiding hands.

Carlisle had seen himself drawn by many an artist in his time, but never had he seen his likeness placed onto paper with such care before. Every contour had changed, light and harsh in different places; he could see where the pressure of her pencil had thickened, where her fingers had faltered and made amends. He could sense her tenderness in each smudge of lead, the places she had put forth more effort to perfect – the crook of his elbow, the angle of his back, the slope of his jaw, the slight curls on the back of his neck. She had somehow managed to capture the strength in his limbs, the depth of his figure in space, the texture of his clothing – each wrinkle and line so perfectly rendered – all of it, so utterly perfect because Esme was the artist.

"You made me look much better on paper," he said, grateful he had been able to find his voice at all.

Her laughter was like bells on Sunday morning, like the flawless trickling sound that came from a distant waterfall when a man was dying of thirst.

"And I'm not even finished with you yet," she teased, tugging back on the sketchbook.

"Do you need me to resume my pose over there?" he asked jokingly, gesturing to the fireplace.

Her infectious giggles faded into a small whisper. "Not tonight."

"Today," he whispered back, pointing to the grandfather clock to show her how late it had gotten.

"Oh, goodness, that went by so quickly!" she said, flustered as she pressed a hand to her forehead in disbelief.

"It did, didn't it?" he agreed absently as his eyes drifted over to the window where the dawn sparkled a cold violet on the horizon from between the pine trees. He knew what that color meant.

Clouds.

He had hoped vainly the whole night through that the world would awaken to a sunlit Christmas morning, but no man could have the fortune of every blessing.

Regretfully, Carlisle let go of Esme's sketchbook and let it slide back onto her petite kneecaps with a sigh. He stood up uncomfortably, knowing her eyes were searching his face, but he was unable to meet her gaze. He straightened his shirt and looked to the door, hoping she would guess before he had to tell her...

"You still have to work this morning, don't you?" she guessed correctly.

She stopped him before he could mutter a disappointed confirmation, her voice gentle as she sighed, "I understand."

"I won't be long," he promised and pressed a reassuring hand to her shoulder. "It _is_ a holiday."

He walked slowly back to his desk, his feet almost lethargic as he stopped to clean up his patients' keepsakes, placing them one by one into his bag. His hand paused over a crumpled piece of paper he had taken out of the drawer – one among many that had been smeared with ocean blue ink. Quietly, Carlisle unfolded the letter to read it, his eyes nearly watering at the words he wished he could show her. They flowed across the page in lyrical simplicity, like a shimmering blue stream.

_I dream of the night when my lips will find yours, and your voice will sigh my name like a prayer..._

_...of a time when it will only be you and I, when I can cradle your body in my arms and hold you as close as I wish..._

_...when I will surrender myself to you _– _body, heart, and soul _– _and you will accept me into your eternal embrace..._

_...when we might share our most fervent, hidden passions _– _these which neither of us has ever dared to whisper out loud _– _and we will no longer live in shame of our hearts' desires, but rather make known our most cherished secrets to one another forever..._

When he looked up from his aching blue prose, she was gone. Vanished. Her enchanting scent was left in her wake like the soft, somber fragrance of a wedding bouquet.

He braced his hands to tear the letter in half, then he stopped.

He felt the presence of Esme and Edward lingering outside the study; he heard their breath, their shifting footsteps, and he knew he could not stir up such a scene.

Instead, Carlisle chose the silent death for his private love note. Suspending it above the candle on his desk, he gently dipped the corner into the flame, watching with a sick mix of sadness and satisfaction as the paper rapidly scorched itself from the edges. Yellow chasing orange chasing brown chasing black – it shriveled wearily under the unstoppable siege of the fire, spreading like demon fingers through his beautiful, heartfelt words. The blue turned a grotesque green color, melting off the paper like mutant tears. And when no evidence of his lovesick wishes remained, Carlisle dropped the ashes into the candle dish and blew out the flame. The threadlike smoke spiraled out toward him, as if begging him not to leave so soon.

It chased him until he reached the hallway, until he found fresh air in the cold front foyer. He shrugged his winter coat over his shoulders and opened the door to the closet, searching for the burgundy scarf Esme always wanted him to wear. He heard her step into the room beside him, so close that he could barely keep his eyes from straying in her direction. He feared that his distress over her nearness was obvious until her small hand reached forward to intrude upon his search.

"Is this the one you were searching for?" her sweet soprano sounded, his saving grace. With insulting ease, she pulled the thick red scarf from its hiding place as if she had known of its whereabouts all along.

She must have known the sentimental value it had for him.

Of course she knew. She was the cause of it. It was written all over her eyes.

"Oh...well—yes," he admitted, finding it useless to argue the truth. She didn't have to know it all, and for that he was still exceedingly thankful.

Carlisle stiffened into absolute stillness as he watched Esme's slender arms raise above her head to slide the scarf around his neck. His neck was warmed instantly, though not with a covered sort of warmth, but more of a flushing warmth, an internal warmth that spread rapidly to his face. His breaths came harder simply from the observation of how much smaller she appeared physically when they were face to face this way. He savored her nearness unabashedly, drinking in the sweet scent that clung to her lily white skin. He thought it very domestic, how her hands were so close to him, so precise with their movements, tucking and tugging and arranging. He could easily grow addicted to having her hands picking and pulling at his clothing. He considered it a shame that people did not traditionally wear scarves around their thighs as well.

"I can't believe you have to work on Christmas," she said softly, breaking his wretched fantasy.

He tried to smooth out the guilt in his voice before whispering, "People still need healing on Christmas."

He watched her shiver, and he struggled to suppress the instinct to envelop her into his arms. He closed his eyes briefly as her fingers brushed down the front of his chest, having finally arranged the scarf to her liking. Those fingers of hers were so unspeakably divine in so many ways – with all the free-spirited creativity of an artist, and that strange, maternal combination of strength and gentleness. He wanted nothing more than to taste each one of her fingers in turn.

He met her eyes boldly, and she stared back at him. The silent exchange lasted no more than a few seconds before Carlisle's arms were wound tightly around Esme's back, pulling her against him. Her body leaned into him trustingly, and he deeply enjoyed the feel of her, snug beneath his own coat.

"Don't stay too late." Her voice was unbearably small.

"I couldn't," he admitted, his voice just as weak.

His arms wrapped more tightly around Esme as he looked up to find Edward standing vigilantly against the staircase behind them. His eyes were playful, warm and dark. Normally such a knowing expression would have had Carlisle worried, but today it only gave him an odd bout of hope.

_Merry Christmas, Edward, _he murmured through his mind so as not to stir Esme from their embrace.

"Merry Christmas, Carlisle," the boy responded, nothing but genuine joy shining in his eyes.

_Oh, my son. You know you are the most wonderful gift I could ever ask for. _

The joy in Edward's eyes rolled over. "Spare me the sentimentalities, Doctor Cullen," he retorted with a predictable smirk.

To Carlisle's deepest regret, Esme gently pried herself from his arms at the sound of Edward's voice. He could still not take his eyes off of her, and it only made the situation more awkward as Edward had to tug his shoulder to urge him towards the door.

"The earlier you leave, the earlier you can come home."

The promising words filled Carlisle with a rush of excitement, but the thought of leaving his home for so many hours was admittedly dampening to his mood. To think that there had been a time in his life when the hospital was his only place of joy was now preposterous. It now made perfect sense to him what his colleagues meant when they said they were homesick during the workday.

Carlisle walked up to the automobile on the side of the road, silently regretting every step he took further away from his family. Their resounding laughter echoed through the sparkling white yard, filling his heart with bittersweet jubilance. He took one last look at them through the frosty windshield, tackling each other playfully in the snow.

The sweet pealing of Esme's laughter stuck with him as he drove further away from the house. Even miles out of hearing range, it was still very much alive in his head, haunting him throughout his day.

Each thought of Esme put a halt in time. He closed his eyes and saw her face, and the seconds slowed for him to savor the apparition. He entered a quiet ward, and he heard her voice whispering in the halls. Although each thought of her filled him with a strange burst of energy, that energy drained rapidly, like water gushing through a wide ravine.

His patients were agreeable, cooperative, kindly. Many of those who were admitted that morning were not serious cases, and those who had stayed overnight were in better shape today. The other doctors blamed a "Christmas miracle" for their good fortune. Carlisle had to agree with them.

During the final hour of his shift, Carlisle passed by Father Simon in the hall. The pastor had always exuded an air of unmistakable holiness, but on Christmas he felt it was even stronger. There was no denying that the man had a calming essence about him – in fact, many people compared their priest's gentle nature with that of the mysterious Doctor Cullen. But the tiny stitch of envy in Carlisle's heart hated to be compared to the priest. Somehow it felt like he was being compared to his own father.

"Doctor Cullen," Father Simon acknowledged, slowing to a standstill in the middle of the hall. Carlisle's feet stopped just a few feet away, aware that the priest's stance seemed to be suggesting a conversation.

"Father, so good to see you," Carlisle replied politely; forcing his voice to sound tired was not so hard.

"You're holding up well, I trust?"

Carlisle's first instinct was to respond with the word "aye." Oddly enough, the language and habits of his youth seemed all the more natural when he was in the presence of the priest.

"The Lord makes sure of it," Carlisle answered with an exhausted but tender smile.

Father Simon smiled back, his eyes pleased by the remark. "That He does. I believe it is your faith makes you stronger than most doctors I've known. I see it every day."

"Oh...I—"

"Sister Beatrice and I wanted to thank you for all your hard work over this difficult season," he interrupted. "It's not often we give material gifts for Christmas, but she was insistent that you deserved something, and naturally I agreed."

With one hand he held out a small red box no bigger than his palm. Carlisle looked questioningly to the priest for a nod of consent before he carefully took it and lifted the lid.

Inside the box lay a tiny crystal dove on a thin golden string – an ornament for the Christmas tree which he did not have. Carlisle tried to ignore the lump in his throat as he stared speechlessly at the gift. It was the first he had been given in nearly a decade, and despite how small it was, knowing it had come from a man he had once envied made it all the more heart-wrenching.

"Father, I don't know what to say," Carlisle whispered, avoiding eye contact with the man. "It seems almost...inappropriate to accept this from a... well, a..."

A look of understanding crossed the priest's mature face. "We are coworkers, Carlisle. Our titles may be different, but our work is the same," he reminded in a low voice. "We strive to heal people, both bodies and souls. We have a silent synergy, you and I. God works within us in remarkable ways. We are witnesses to His power every day."

To have his work compared to that of a priest was most flattering for Carlisle, but deep down he knew that certain powers of the clergy would always be denied him.

"I'm honored to share this place of healing with you and your colleagues," Father Simon continued sincerely. "In all my years here I don't think I've ever worked with a group so devoted to both their work and their faith."

"Sometimes it is difficult to do both," Carlisle admitted, feeling the need to open up to someone. "Especially when there are people in your life who believe differently."

Father Simon sighed. "True, but we must always accept the beliefs of others, even if they do not coincide with our own."

"This is one form of acceptance I fear I will always have trouble with," Carlisle confessed.

"You know someone who is struggling with their faith. Someone close to you."

The doctor looked up, slightly shocked by how sure the priest sounded as he said this. "How do you know that?"

"I could sense that about you," Father Simon said quietly, his pale eyes shining cryptically. "You carry it with you – their burden becomes yours. But you know you don't need to do the work for them. God speaks to each of us in turn."

"I never realized how challenging such patience could be when it involves someone you love."

"Yes..." The priest wore a secretive smile on his face as he nodded. "I sensed that about you as well."

Carlisle raised a questioning eyebrow.

"You're still quite young, Doctor. You have many years yet to live and to love. You will find your path; I have confidence in you."

Carlisle smiled wryly at the irony of his age, but could think of nothing to say in response.

"The dove is a symbol of hope and of peace," Father Simon spoke for him, pointing to the little crystal bird in its box. "I pray that it will bring you great peace on this Christmas. Share it with those you love, and perhaps they will find peace in their own hearts as well."

The priest smiled broadly, and for the first time since he'd known him, Carlisle finally felt at ease with the man he had reluctantly referred to as "Father."

"Thank you," he whispered before closing the lid over the dove.

"May God be with you."

******-}0{-**

For many reasons, Carlisle found the drive home infinitely more pleasurable than the drive to the hospital. He rode with the windows down despite the frigid temperature so that he could breathe in the sweet smoky scents of a hundred burning chimneys from the town miles away. The thought of a hundred happy families celebrating this most joyous holiday was not depressing as it had once been for him. Now, he could share their joy, knowing his very own family was waiting for him.

The strong fragrance of forest and pine sap bombarded his senses as soon as he opened the front door. Overcome by mirth that Esme and Edward had intended to surprise him with a Christmas tree, Carlisle found himself standing before the closet with a fool's grin as he stripped his layers of coats, murmuring the Christmas greeting in every language he knew.

_"...Srozhdestvom Kristovym ... Maligayan Pasko ... Joyeux Noel ... Feliz Navidad..."_

He smiled richly when he heard her footsteps in the hall, knowing his strange antics would draw her near. Her curiosity was insatiable.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, laughing.

"I've just said 'Merry Christmas' in a dozen languages," he explained as though it were obvious. "I thought you might be familiar with at least one."

Esme laughed again, this time with more enthusiasm. "You could have said it once in English and saved yourself the trouble."

"I was trying to impress you," the truth spilled out before he could stop himself.

A look of intrigue passed over her bright eyes, and his heart pounced as she replied, "Well, you did a fine job of that."

Before she could say anything further, Carlisle found the red box in his pocket, pulling it out to present it to her without a word of explanation. Everything was moving too fast for him to keep up, and he was the one initiating all of it.

"Wait, now what are you doing?" she queried with a confused grin.

"One of my colleagues gave this to me as a Christmas gift," he said as he held the box closer to her and lifted the dove from its bed of black velvet.

"It's a lovely ornament," Esme sighed pleasantly.

He smiled as he looked up towards the hallway. "You did bring in a tree while I was gone."

"It was Edward's idea," she blamed with a smirk.

"Have you decorated it yet?" Carlisle asked hopefully.

"No." She seemed regretful, and he vowed to change that at once.

"Well, come on then," he gestured her toward the sitting room, his utter happiness making everything move twice as fast around him.

He walked into the sitting room with her following close behind him, her breath and her footsteps a most familiar beat. Whenever Carlisle entered a dark room with Esme, he felt there was a distinct difference to the darkness. It was not the same kind of darkness he had come to know as a lonely man – not an absence of light, not a dullness of colors. With Esme, it was a brilliant darkness – a deep, swarthy, enchanting dusk. A consuming pool of midnight tones, drenched in shadows. And he wanted to lose himself in it...with her.

He saw the tree in the corner of the room by the window, and he was reminded of why they were here. Guilt prickled on the back of his neck as Esme passed him to reach out for the evergreen plant. Even before she extended her hand, Carlisle knew what she was going to do...and his heart was in no place to prepare him for it.

As she could never resist doing with every living thing, Esme reached forward and caressed the tree's fine needles like a mother would caress the hair of her newborn child. Her fingertips trailed slowly, weaving a taut tapestry of envy for him to wear over his chest. She must not have known how her behavior had stirred him, physically and emotionally. She must have been entirely absent to her effect on him, for she would never have continued to pet the branches until they wilted under her touch, taking him along with them.

She turned to look at him, calling him out on his quiet sin with her piercing eyes. The exotic wine and gold blend of her gaze was made a riveting purple in the dark. He paused to catch his breath and took her hand away from the tree, holding it tightly in his own. Carlisle lifted ornamental dove by its string and let it settle into Esme's open palm, and he swore he could see the crystal begin to melt a bit at the contact he so craved.

Esme looked down at the ornament in her hand, then back up at him. "Where should I hang it?" she asked, her voice furtive, hushed.

She must have known he would give her the choice, and yet she had asked him anyway. It pleased him endlessly that she always did this.

"You choose," he murmured, never taking his eyes off her face. "Anywhere you want."

Esme stood back critically as if to size up the tree, and Carlisle covered his mouth to hide his amusement. Her intensity for the simplest of tasks was endearing to him. Her eyes wandered the branches, envisioning the dove dangling from each one. At last when her eyes reached the top of the tree, he could see in her face that her decision had been made.

"I want it to be all the way up at the top, Carlisle," she said suddenly, secretively.

He glanced at the treetop with a sparkle of longing in his eyes, as if there were an angel seated at the very top. There might very well have been an angel in the room, for Carlisle felt his blessings were growing more abundant by the moment. And if what Esme seemed to be implying turned out to be true...

"You cannot reach that high," he said, hoping not to sound discouraging. He supposed his eyes would reveal the truth of his consent before he had to speak it.

"Not on my own," she acknowledged. Her eyes were nearly begging him. He wondered how he had been so dim to not see it before.

He did not even have the sense to hesitate before he stepped up behind her and clutched both sides of her petite waist with eager hands. "Let me lift you?"

They both knew it was not a question. It was a bit of a desperate plea, in fact, but neither would ever admit it. Esme gave those few precious nods of consent, and Carlisle's heart swelled to dangerous proportions as he lifted his beloved off the ground.

There was an overwhelmingly sweet power to having her in his arms; like she was only his, and not even the earth could touch her. He was helping her to reach a height she had never thought possible on her own. He was defying gravity for her – _all for her _– and she was depending entirely on his strength to hold her up, to bring her higher.

He watched her from below as she reached with one quivering hand to place the dove on the uppermost branch, and though he was happy to see it secure in its perch, he was dreading the moment he would have to bring her back to the ground. He lowered her as slowly as possible, but it was not slow enough.

As he set her down, his heart likewise descended from its high. Her waist was still so pliant in his hands, he could barely bring himself to let her go. His fingers sent her the message through a brief, gentle squeeze before his hands fell away. _I don't really want to let go_, he told her silently through his touch. He counted on Esme to hear it.

"Thank you," she said with a merry sigh as she ran her hands down her front to brush the pine needles away.

"I would have put it in the very same place," Carlisle said, nodding to the ornament that now hung at the very top of the tree.

"A dove should be as near to the sky as possible," Esme said, her gaze joining his.

"I like that," he murmured.

The crystal dove twirled slowly in a flight of tranquil stillness, its tiny eyes taking in the room from above.

"The dove is a symbol for hope, isn't it?" Esme asked, using the very same words the priest had used to describe it earlier that day. Carlisle smiled to himself at the coincidence, overjoyed beyond comprehension that he could confirm this truth for her.

"Yes," he sighed, "the dove is a symbol for hope...and peace."

"I like that," Esme whispered.

Carlisle turned to watch her hopeful profile shining in the evening light. "So do I."


	25. A Breathtaking Blessing

**A Breathtaking Blessing**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 46: Christmas by Candlelight, Part II" from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

Carlisle had always been confounded by photographs. When he had first learned of the curious invention which had the ability to capture an image from real life in several minutes without missing a detail, he longed to learn everything about it. It always struck him as ironic that his memory had no need for such a device, yet he'd found all things daguerreotype more fascinating than most humans had in the early days.

Even now as his fingers wandered through old boxes of photographs on his desk, his eyes were drawn to the faded faces and stiff bodied figures, frozen in a single moment of time forever. A photograph was the only way for a human to live eternally as he did – never aging and never changing. Perhaps that was why those grainy shades of sepia haunted Carlisle so.

Each familiar face took its toll on his emotions. He regarded each patient with either a fond smile or a regretful wince, recalling those he knew were now deceased and those whom he had been able to save. It was invigorating to think that with his aid, some of these people had been granted the gift of several more years to live. So many of the gifts worth giving came from a place far, far out of his reach.

Esme asked him questions – so many questions – about the photographed people. Just when he thought there was nothing more to be asked, she came up with some tiny detail he never would have expected. But it was perhaps no secret that he was indecently thrilled to answer every one of her questions, sometimes elaborating more than necessary for the sake of impressing her. Carlisle had always been especially fond of storytelling, and it only made it better that all of his stories were true. It enticed him to think about all of the stories he had locked away in his memory for centuries, just waiting to be told... and he wanted to share them all with Esme someday.

He hoped there would come a time when he would be telling her a new story every night after the sun went down. Maybe he would take her outside and sit beneath the stars and whisper into her ear for hours. He would whisper to her about the Sistine Chapel and the streets of Barcelona, and the way the Seine River sparkled under a full moon in Paris no matter what the season. It wouldn't matter what he talked about – in this dream, Esme was smitten with every word he uttered, and every time he paused, she begged to hear more. He would fulfill her wish until she was satisfied, and then he would answer every one of her insane little questions about all the places he had visited. God knew she would have quite a few.

Carlisle breathed in, quick and heavy, as Esme's fingers brushed his inside the photo box. She scooped out a few photographs and smiled as she held them closer to study the faces of men and women she had never met. Carlisle smiled to himself as he watched her wonder blossom with each new photo her fingers touched. While it baffled him that she could find a pile of damaged photos of complete strangers so worthy of her interest, he was overjoyed by her enthusiasm all the same.

Every once in a while she would look up from one of the photos she was examining and meet his eyes. A quick smile would flit across her soft, pink lips before she turned her head down, but the effect of her fleeting glance lingered in his mind like the fiery residue of sun glare.

Her eyes were a bright, deep red, shining and opaque like the skin of an apple. Only when he looked closely enough could he see tiny threads of gold swimming through the scarlet. He was fascinated by the way her eyes changed from day to day, the fine threads turning into small bursts of amber, evidence of her promise to abide by his lifestyle. But this was not the only reason why Esme's eyes were so beautiful to him. He could imagine lying beside her in a world where he could reach freely for her cheek, turn her face toward him and stare for as long as he liked. He would study every fleck of color in her sunset eyes, learning every one of her secrets from just one gaze. The notion was so appealing it made him ache.

It was this ache, he presumed, that encouraged his son to finally leave the room for the evening.

Carlisle was slightly embarrassed by how excited he became when Edward simply stepped out of his study, but as a gentleman he tried not to show it, especially not when Esme was standing so close to him. He distracted himself with another handful of photos, flicking through them until he stumbled upon one that ignited a profound pang in his heart.

His first thought was how Esme would surely fawn over the story that went along with that photograph.

Just like that, he knew he had to tell her.

"I have a story for you."

She peeked up at him with her chronically curious eyes. "You do?"

He nodded. "Yes, I think you will appreciate it." He held out the old photograph out for her to see. "See this boy? His name is Luke. He was my patient in 1912, not long after I treated you. His parents had both died about a half a year before I met him. They had been passengers on the Titanic, coming home to him from Europe."

Predictably, Esme's tender heart was outraged. "Oh, that's tragic!"

"But you must listen to my story," he said softly, trying not to show his amusement. "It has a happy ending."

He recounted the brief but touching story for her, carefully watching her eyes the entire time, and the way her face changed when he told her about the boy's unfortunate conditions. By the time Carlisle reached the part about the young woman who had been unable to bear children, Esme had already guessed where the story was going.

"You brought them together? Tell me you brought them together," she guessed hopefully, eyes shining.

"I did." Carlisle was never more proud to say those two words before. "I never saw a child so happy before in my life, nor a grown woman for that matter. They became a family shortly after that, and they were inseparable." He smiled at the memory. "Sadly I don't have a photograph of Luke with his new parents. But there was no sight more heartwarming than watching him hold each of their hands as they took him home."

"I'm sure they never forgot that Christmas," Esme sighed. "Or _you_ for bringing them together."

He could hear how much she meant it – Esme's words were never light. They had always carried with them the wholesome weight of sincerity. She made kindness a passionate practice; it was something about her voice.

"I like to think that Luke lived a few years longer because he finally had people who cared for him," Carlisle added quietly. He was leading Esme on purposefully, needing her to infect him with her brightness.

In an instant her hand was tucked reassuringly behind his shoulder. "Well, who knows? Maybe he is still alive and well, enjoying this Christmas just the same as we are right now."

There it was. He couldn't keep the smile off his face, just from her sweet, simple hope.

"Somehow I feel this is true," he sighed in agreement.

He expected her hand to slip away then, but instead she moved it forward, rubbing his shoulder almost tentatively while she spoke. "That's a beautiful story, Carlisle. Have you ever told it to Edward?"

He shrugged. "Not aloud."

"I wish I could entertain _you _with precious stories from my past," Esme teased.

He cocked his head in doubt. "You have no memories of the holidays when you were human?"

"The last Christmas I remember was when I was just a little girl. It was just one of those odd memories that seeped into my subconscious a few nights ago."

"Tell me about it," he insisted, feeling oddly as though he were asking her to reveal some dark secret.

"Well, I might have been eight or so, I'm not sure," she said, a tiny smile tugging on her lips. "I was standing in the open doorway, and it was snowing outside...and...I was holding one of those _bonbonnière_ boxes. Remember those?"

He nodded, laughing gently in encouragement. Everything she said, no matter how mundane it may have seemed to her, was precious to him.

"My father was doing something with the garland on the banister outside..." She pulled her hand away from Carlisle's shoulder to press her fingers to her forehead in thought. "I can't remember his face at all."

Not remembering faces from his human life was a familiar frustration for Carlisle. There was one face in particular, however, which he had not even been able to remember in his human life.

Thoughtlessly, Carlisle asked his ever-burning question. "Do you remember your mother?"

It was something he seemed to ask everyone, in the hopes that _someone _would share his estranged fate. His mother was and forever would be the most important woman in his heart. It felt so wrong that he had never even had the chance to see her face or hear her voice...

"No," Esme whispered. Carlisle's heart was torn between being pained at Esme's loss and being comforted that she now shared his sorrow. She looked up to him questioningly, encouraging him to elaborate.

"As a child I used to wish, most ardently, for a mother around Christmastime," he found himself speaking more fluidly now. "It wasn't as if I was the only boy without a mother, of course. So many women passed away during childbirth in those times. I was only one of many children who were left with just one parent."

"Do you ever imagine what your mother might have looked like?" asked Esme.

"Yes," he confirmed, feeling tears of venom sting in his eyes. "All of the time."

_Her pale blond hair, her warm blue eyes like a sunlit sky, her rosy cheeks, her smiling lips. _He had imagined all of his mother, from what she would have looked like to the things she would say to him if she could meet her only son.

"Sometimes I do the same with my son," Esme echoed the longing Carlisle felt, tempting his heart to break.

He felt her pain blooming inside his own chest, as if she had somehow summoned it through to him with just the sound of her voice. All at once it crashed into him, strong and unexpected, like a rogue wave from a wild ocean.

"Oh, Esme," he all but gasped her name, his hand braced firmly against his heart as if he feared it would shatter without the support. He looked away from her, unable to stare her in the eyes and see that pain he felt firsthand. It was too unbearable for him to even face.

"I never named him," she mourned, her tone lost and empty. "Can you believe that?"

No matter how deep the pain struck him, Carlisle needed to see her eyes in that moment. He turned his head in one fluid motion, eyes wandering over her features like a child would wander through a streaming brook – with a frantic sort of cautiousness, a curious but quiet intensity. Her lips parted and he failed to prepare himself for what she was going to say.

"If you were ever to have your own son, what would you name him?"

Her words pulled his heart into a long lost rhythm; even if it was only in his imagination, he felt it, hard and true. Esme wanted to know what _he _would have named his own son, if given the chance.

"Gabriel," he responded, too stunned to notice that his voice had lost all its strength in just one word.

"After the archangel?" she asked, a fond hint of smile in her lips.

He nodded, marveling at how she seemed able to predict his every motivation for every choice he made. She was running her fingers along his moral compass daily, and quite soon he feared she would be the one controlling it.

"Then that will be my son's name," she decided. Her velvet voice savored the syllables, letting them ripple like calm water from her gentle tongue. "Gabriel."

Carlisle shuddered with mirth as he watched Esme cradle an invisible child in her arms. He could see that she was imagining it – her vivid dreams coming to life behind her closed eyes. He wished fervently that he could share the experience with her somehow...but such a hope was impossible. He settled for watching her from a distance, standing apart from her mysterious little world, an outsider looking in.

"You don't know how long I've needed to do that," she said quietly, her voice laced with relief. "For so long I've avoided naming him, afraid that I would only miss him more. But now that I can finally call him by name, I only feel more...complete."

Overjoyed by her confession, Carlisle felt a sharp and sudden urge to touch her somehow.

"That's wonderful, Esme," he said softly, his fingers twitching toward her slightly. "Hearing you say that – it brings me such peace, you cannot even imagine." Mustering the irrational surge of courage it took to reach out and touch her, he lifted his hand and stroked two fingers delicately over her jaw. A pleasant thread of electricity pulled through him, making his fingertips ache, and he had to retreat too soon. "Every time you feel that sense of completeness, you take another step forward," he added.

"I couldn't take those steps without you," she said, her tone soft but insistent. "Everything you give me is a gift, Carlisle. You know that." Her eyes were bold and assuring, everything he felt he wasn't in that moment. "Don't look melancholy, it's true," she chided ever so gently.

"I wasn't feeling melancholy," he said slowly, apologetically. "I was only...pondering."

"Pondering?" The endearing dimple on the corner of her mouth both mocked and tempted him at once. "What about?"

"I don't really know how else to explain it – but this is the first Christmas I've had in a very long time that truly _feels _like Christmas," he tried to explain.

She nodded slowly. "I know what you mean."

"Hm."

"What?"

"I'd always imagined you to be the kind of person who could never feel depressed on a holiday," he said with a shrug. He turned back to rearrange the photographs on his desk, waiting for her response.

"I don't think that kind of person exists, Carlisle," she sighed in a distinctively motherly way. "As much as we'd like to think it does."

He tilted his head to look at her face, catching a flicker in her eyes that filled him with unease and confusion. "You were...troubled the last several years of your life, weren't you?" he asked gently.

"Yes, very much so," she admitted, her eyes darkening. For a moment he feared she would not be able to speak any further, but she seemed steadied by a quiet strength. "There was no one there for me during the rest of the year, let alone the holidays."

The tightness in his chest shattered with the coming of a sickening pang. The mere thought of Esme being alone in any circumstance physically hurt Carlisle in a most frightening and unfamiliar way. No thoughts of any other person had ever affected him so deeply. He imagined Esme, consumed by fear, locked away in a dark house on some cold Christmas without the company of anyone but herself and her unborn child, her hands folded over her belly as the tears streamed down her cheeks. Just the thought was like the stab of a sword through his throat.

He released a heavy breath and she followed suit, her fingers twisting uncomfortably while she stared at the floor as if trying to blink back tears. He moved closer to her, the urge to touch her nearly overruling his good sense. He held back with some restraint, almost afraid to disrupt her in such a personal moment.

"Do you not know that when you tell me these things, I literally ache?" The passion he had been trying to suppress poisoned his voice, betraying him even in a whisper.

"You shouldn't," she told him firmly. There was an edge to her voice that was almost scolding, and he stilled. Immediately she seemed to notice the change in his demeanor and she softened, reaching out to place her palm against his heart. "The worst of the pain has left me," she said calmly. "It's all so distant now, it's almost like... like I'm remembering another person's life, and not my own."

"But you still remember it," he gently reminded her. "That must hurt sometimes."

He could see that her emotions had been churned by his words. Her face changed, becoming more mask-like as she pulled her hand away from him. He mourned the loss of her touch, longing to seize it back.

"Of course," she answered mildly. "You would know that just as well as I do."

"_I_ was not abused, Esme," he argued, his voice quiet and his resolve flushed.

"You were neglected," she disproved, so deliciously firm. "That can be just as painful."

He stared back at her, enthralled by the soothing storm in her eyes, a lump of emotion lodging itself in his throat as he considered her words regarding his past.

"That kind of pain is...transient," he responded shakily.

"Is it really?" she questioned him, her eyes like fire opals, sparking with challenge. But her voice was so soft when she spoke again. "You still fear being alone, Carlisle. I can sense that about you."

He felt the pooling of darkness settle into his own eyes as the meaning behind her words sunk in. The mere implication that Esme could _sense _his fears was somehow both terrifying and titillating at once.

"You sense this?" he breathed, incredulous. "How?"

Her eyes flitted over his face, leaving each feature to burn beneath the mark her gaze had left upon it. "I see it in your face. I hear it in your voice. Even the way you move tells me this."

A bullet of warmth pierced his middle, stretching across his body. His knees felt shaky and his throat felt far too tight. Esme was still staring at him as if she knew something he didn't – the incredulity of her expression spurred him to seek more of this curious notion.

"I don't understand what any of these things have to do with my fear of loneliness," he pointed out, too desperate to care that his voice sounded so weak.

"There's always been something about you that looks sad to me," she confided, cocking her head to study his face again. "Something in your eyes. The way you look at people... almost like you're pleading with them."

He swallowed hard and hoped to God she could not hear it. Inside his heart tingled with panic, hanging on her every word as she continued to pick his secrets apart piece by piece.

"When you're sharing a room with someone you'll never leave more than a certain amount of space between you and the other person," she pointed out, and his cheeks could have flamed seeing the lack of space between their bodies right now, knowing full well it had been all by his doing.

Everything she was saying to him was so frustratingly intimate, so boldly caring, so thrillingly attentive. That she had bestowed enough scrutiny upon his every move to notice such tiny details about his interactions both frightened and excited him. The maternal side to her behavior struck him as most appealing, that she felt a need to protect _him_, to watch over _him_. Though he had once believed that was his job alone, he now could see Esme as his quiet savior, the small observant woman who needed so desperately to smite his pain before she even thought of her own.

"And my voice," he urged her on, struggling to spend his words on one final breath. "How do you sense it in my voice?"

He saw her take a preparatory breath – the swell of her breasts, pressing against the soft blue fabric of her bodice as she opened her lips to answer—

_Thwap. _

Carlisle gave a start at the sound of snow hitting the window behind them, his eyes wide and alarmed, still frozen in place while Esme flurried over to the source of the interruption, laughing happily, "Is that Edward?"

Carlisle felt the tight heat of anticipation fade from his limbs as his unanswered question was forgotten. He slowly approached her from behind, peering out the window into the snow covered yard where Edward stood proudly showing off his hours of hard work.

"Oh, look at him." Carlisle couldn't help but chuckle grudgingly at his son's antics.

"Well, he's quite talented. You can't deny that," Esme said brightly.

"He's a genius. And I'm not just boasting on his behalf. He truly is one of the most brilliant young men I've met," Carlisle said fondly, "and I've met many."

"He seems much happier lately," Esme pressed, clearly in an effort to drag the conversation further and further away from their previous discussion. It hurt Carlisle that she was so intent on leaving his question behind, but it was not something he wished to impose on her any longer, being too afraid that her obvious discomfort would despise his insistence.

"You seem happier, too," he said significantly, watching as her eyes went from nervous to relieved in a matter of seconds.

"I am."

"I'm glad," he said, only half his sincerity spared for her, but none for himself.

She turned her head down with a bashful little smile, trailing her fingers boldly over his desk as she made her way around it. It bestirred him to watch her touch his space so liberally; it pleased him that she looked so comfortable there beside his desk. He wished he could find her there every day...

"Are these?" She paused, gesturing to the stack of Christmas cards on the corner of his desk.

"From my patients, yes," he supplied swiftly.

She raised her eyes to his for permission before she tentatively touched the corner of one card. "Do you mind if I...?"

Hastily, he urged her on. "No, not at all. Would you like to look at them?"

He knew her answer would be yes, and so he moved into action before she had the chance to speak. He gathered the cards together and headed for the couch, settling down by the fire in suggestion for her to join him. She came quickly enough, comfortable with the closeness and with the number of times their hands seemed to touch whenever he passed her a new envelope to look at.

Carlisle was surprised by Esme's apparent fascination with the Christmas cards. She was always finding the simplest things intriguing, but here he was finally beginning to see the source of her rapture. She would take every envelope from his hands as if handling a piece of crystal, with the utmost care and delicacy. Her fingers would trace over the blotted handwriting with a fond and familiar touch. He hovered over her and watched while she read all of his private letters – from the most personal stories of grief and healing to the simplest, four-word holiday greetings.

"They're beautiful," she said at last, her voice filled with mystique and awe.

"They are, aren't they?" he agreed, just now understanding the truth of her statement.

"The things they say to you," she marveled, as if the humans' notes were something so rare and precious. "You can just see how much they _care _about you."

Her choice of words kindled such sweet warmth in his heart.

Carlisle let his chin nestle atop her head, his skin savoring the silky touch of her hair. "You can?"

"Absolutely." She placed a card back into its envelope and sighed. "They adore you – what you've done for them."

A peaceful silence settled over the room like a blanket, leaving each to their own thoughts for a while. Carlisle held Esme in that drawn-out moment, wishing it would never end so that he could keep her near forever. She felt so perfect against his body, her Circean appeal and her sweet gentleness married together to create his ideal match in a woman. She was endlessly fascinating and endearingly soft-hearted, altogether infuriating in her loveliness.

The dull glow of the crackling fire soothed his eyes shut as he rested his arms around her, his breaths mating with hers as her back rose and fell along with his chest.

"These cards are precious," she interrupted the silence with a timid voice. "You should treasure them forever."

He hummed in agreement, his secret contentment not so secret with the telltale depth of the sound.

"Do you realize how blessed you are to have so many people who respect you and care for you?" Esme pressed, her tone slightly stronger now.

His arms tensed a bit as they struggled to keep hold of her, somehow sensing that she was about to gesture wildly or do something unexpected.

"They _think _about you, Carlisle. My God, they've _seen _you, and they _remember _you," she was saying, stunned by the prospect.

"Esme?" he inquired apprehensively.

"Humans, Carlisle. Humans!" she repeated the term like it was something outrageous, her body seeming to heat up as her fervor grew. "You interact with them, and they respond to you. They _know _you. Don't you see how miraculous that is?"

"Miraculous..." The word drifted in and out of his comprehension as he considered the truth in what she had said. "You compare this with a miracle?"

He shifted as he felt her head begin to turn, allowing her to look up into his eyes. This was where _he_ found the realm of miracles. In Esme's eyes, he saw the world reflected back at him, heavenly and perfect. Her intensity tugged him deeper until he was drowning in the unfathomable wonders she promised the other half of his soul.

She blinked once, as if politely warning him that he had fallen too far. His senses came back as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shrugged shyly, coming back down to her spot on his shoulder.

"I'm just trying to say, it feels strange when no one knows that you exist," she whispered, sounding so lost that it broke his heart.

He felt a burning behind his eyes, a longing to redeem his gaze with hers. His body tingled at the rush of warm breath she released over his neck, a thrilling reminder that her lips were dangerously near to the scars he had forgotten to keep hidden beneath his collar. Suddenly he was aware of just how _close _she was, how intimate her place in his arms, how willing she was to be pressed against him like this.

Out of sheer need, he slipped his fingers gently around her chin and tilted her face up to meet his eyes. "Edward and I know you exist," he said, his voice coming forth darker than he had intended.

He felt her chin quiver lightly in his hand before she buried her face in his chest again. "I know it should be enough, but there's something inside of me that longs to be recognized by the society I once belonged to," she mourned, shaking her head against his shoulder as she tried to make sense of it all.

"Oh, I know how you feel," he attempted to comfort her, holding her tighter. "It won't be this way forever, Esme. I will help you. One day you will be there again, just as I am. I can promise you that."

"Your promises seem impossible sometimes, Carlisle," she whimpered softly, her fingers fiddling around with the fabric of his shirt like a distracted child.

"I would never make a promise if it were impossible."

"I know that," she whispered as her hand began to slide slowly down his front. "I trust you."

He stayed entirely still as her palm made its way down his chest, and with every new inch she passed, he assumed she would stop. But she only kept going further, lower...

A quiver flew up his spine as her hand neared his lap. Already flushed with desire, he tried to shift so that the placement of her hand would not make him so vulnerable...but he could not even move. He was seconds away from seizing her hand before it reached its inevitable end, when she finally decided to pause mere inches above his belt.

Perhaps it was closer to a mere _inch_. He was afraid to look.

He found that he wanted, in this moment more than any other, to know if Esme's inner thighs were as soft as he had always imagined them to be. He wondered what tiny nooks and parts of her beautiful, feminine body would still hold the tainted story of forgotten motherhood. He wondered if she would let him explore her like a vast, mysterious sea, if she would let him seal his lips to her breast and never let go, if she would cure his ache with her artistically finessed fingers.

Dreaming about her thighs and lusting after her fingers did him absolutely no good. Just one short moment of those kinds of thoughts only served to billow the dreaded fire in his groin.

As a doctor, he should have known this.

The lust tugged at him mercilessly, and the more he tried to ignore it, the harder it became. The harder _everything_ became.

His eyes flitted frantically to the scattered pile of cards in Esme's lap, suddenly all the more appealing for entirely different reasons. As much as he questioned the idea of reaching anywhere near Esme's lap, it was the only solution he could find to the peril he perceived himself to be in.

Somehow keeping his panic in check, Carlisle reached calmly across Esme's knees to slip the mess of cards from her lap onto his. He hoped she would not notice, or at least think little over the peculiar action, but he needed some means to protect himself from her.

His face felt a strong, fiery flash of heat as her hand at last carefully crept away from his belly. She must have noticed his discomfort, and this worried him, even humiliated him to some degree. But just as soon as she withdrew her hand, she nudged her small head against his chin, nestling herself so sweetly into his embrace that his worries were slowly but surely replaced by soft sparks of appreciation and contentment.

From above, he silently consumed her heady fragrance, her scent sugared and pure, like peach nectar. Her hair was so smooth against his sensitive skin, each strand glinting like streaks of tarnished gold through maple silk in the firelight. Carlisle found that he _could_ admire her without the barbaric hunger of lust rising inside of him. He could hold her and have her, and even touch her without cracking the whip on his desire.

Oh, and her presence was so exquisitely gentle, so honest. She was small and warm and truly alive – half _his_ creation – a beautiful gift, a breathtaking blessing.

"Why are candles holy?" she suddenly asked him, the question as welcome as it was unexpected. Her voice was alluring and deeper than usual, and Carlisle paused, determined to answer her with something just as deep in its meaning. Something she could ponder for hours; something that would intrigue her imaginative mind and kindle her spirited heart.

"Because they bring warmth to places of coldness and light to places of darkness," he replied in a whisper as soft as the wind. "Because even when their flames go out, they can always be lit again. And they will burn just as brightly as they did before."

If he listened carefully enough, he could hear the sound of her heart expanding, wildly accepting of his honest words.

"That's so beautiful," she acknowledged, with the voice of a lover lost in slumber.

Syrupy warmth seeped through his body at the sound of her whispered words.

"It is the Truth," he said, cupping one soft elbow in his hand. "The Truth is always beautiful."

Darkly, she countered him. "Sometimes it isn't."

With a sigh he shook his head, smiling patiently above her. "I don't believe we are speaking of the same _Truth_, Bright Eyes."

_Bright Eyes. _

The accidental nickname had slipped out, utterly uninvited by his tongue. However, he could nearly feel the surge of happiness pour through Esme as he said it; she even seemed to flutter a bit in his arms. It made him feel joyful, and proud, and a little giddy.

"Hmmm," she murmured low and gentle. "What is _your _'truth'?"

Carlisle forged a path between their anchors of faith, and bravely declared what he believed. "My 'Truth' is the truth which was promised to me. The everlasting Truth. The answer to eternity. Life Eternal in the kingdom of heaven."

He waited with bated breath after he had finished spilling half his soul, listening with wary ears while Esme thought deeply on all he had said.

"You are like a candle, Carlisle," her heart at last said out loud. The endearing way she said his name was as soothing as a warm spring night. And in the middle of winter, it was all the more pleasant to hear.

"Is this a compliment, dear Esme?" he asked her, a lighthearted chuckle chasing his words.

"Yes," she said with a resolute nod that knocked his chin delightfully to the side. "The best sort."

He laughed quietly behind her as she tucked her body against his; this time he was utterly comforted by her closeness, with not one iota of distress to mar his shared mirth.

"You've brought me such joy, Esme," he said to her, letting it sound like a secret just to tease her. It sort of was.

"Are you always so sentimental around the holidays?" she asked him, her sweet voice touched with exuberance.

From outside the window, Edward graciously answered for his father.

"Trust me, he is."


	26. The Body is a Temple

**The Body is a Temple**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 47: No Shame in a Safe Haven" from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

The lights were all off when Carlisle came into the bathroom that morning. His feet were like ice on the freezing cold tile. The promise of warmth was quietly alluring, being what had drawn him into the bath in the first place.

He lit a single candle for a feeling of safety, a reminder of purity, and he placed it on the window sill so that nothing could touch it. So that he could not change his mind and blow it out.

He had planned for the water to be cold, but instead it came out of the faucet, sloshing and hot. He'd felt it with just the tips of his fingers and was put under its spell. He couldn't bring himself to turn it back to cold.

The air was soon choked with ghostly white steam, the windows encrusted with ice crystals on the outside and fog on the inside. The atmosphere contained in that tiny washroom was heady and intoxicating. It felt thick and oppressive, but in a strangely comforting sort of way.

He undressed himself slowly in the empty room, nervous for the way each tile on the wall seemed to be blinking back at him behind the swirling steam, watching him with their cold, stony blue eyes. The running water hummed critically as each inch of his flesh was exposed, the particles of air prodding him from all around, testing the vulnerability of his every limb. The only thing that was not judging him was his candle, fluttering innocently in her frosty window with her skirt of pale yellow wax and her halo of heavenly fire.

He'd always felt that there was something discomfiting about being naked, even while alone. His trousers came off and suddenly it seemed every inanimate object in the room was stirring, chattering amongst themselves in perfect silence, taunting him, gossiping, glaring.

He swallowed hard as he turned his head back to the lone candle in the window, seeking her guidance. She winked back at him sweetly, and he was at peace again.

As he dipped his toes into the water he felt like he was back in the Turkish Baths, the haunting medley of Marrakesh incense flooding his senses. It was all imagined, but he could almost taste it, as if it were real.

The bubbles spread across the surface like a tiny field of crystalline clovers. He smiled lightly as he let his hands pass over them, distracting himself with their simple beauty. By the time the water rose to the top, the tub was bloated with copious amounts of bubbles – enough that he could no longer flick each with his finger and make it disappear before another popped up somewhere else. They were like hydra heads, the little beasts. All over the place they tickled him and giggled softly whenever he moved the slightest bit.

For a while he encouraged their pestering games, but then they began to disappear slowly as his thoughts shifted from absent playfulness to more tantalizing realms.

He felt again that everything in that room was listening in, participating in his private fantasy. The tiles on the wall were dripping with condensation, as if cold sweat were glazing over their squared blue faces. The candle on the window sill danced about nervously, its flame glowing a hearty pinkish hue as if it were blushing. The sounds of snowflakes nesting on the rooftop were like soft kisses, each one harassing him with its utter loveliness.

Suddenly everything reminded him of _her. _

He wanted her to share this quiet, wet, confined space with him. He wanted her slim, nude body to mold against his own, her hands to thwart his chastity one body part at a time. He wanted to see those bubbles cling to her breasts, the water shining on her smooth, pale skin. He wanted to see the way her face would change as she settled into his hot bath, the way her long caramel waves would thicken from the humidity. He wanted to run his hands through her hair and watch the way the strands darkened from the dampness of his fingers.

Subconsciously he could feel his hand scrubbing his shoulders and chest – the slightly rough, fibery texture of the washcloth as it stroked across his skin. Back and forth, it shifted between rough and soft, soft and rough. He thought it might be nice to make love this way. He wanted it both ways, sometimes. His mind was perfectly capable of wandering in either direction.

The bubbles were all gone by now. His inappropriate behavior must have frightened them all away. There was nothing but a film of soap left on the surface of the bath water. The iridescent sheen still lingered, lapping at his skin, swirling absently into the nooks and crannies of his elbows and knees.

The water was cloudy, like a mixture of milk and moonlight. It would make no difference if he were to release the desires that plagued him now.

It was this thought that encouraged his hand to dip below the surface of the water.

He could hear her stirring about in her bedroom. Lord, she was on her _bed. _He could hear those tiny shifting sounds of sheets being tossed about, the weight of her lithe body as she settled on the mattress. A tiny scratch of paper against paper punctuated the ambiance, and he was filled with a ravishing thrill at the thought that she may have been sketching in bed.

His hands scrubbed more swiftly.

He imagined himself laying beside her, running his hands over her curves while she toyed around with her drawing pencils and sketchpad. He imagined slipping his tongue around the shell of her ear and hearing her sigh in response. The reward was so real that he could have sworn he heard it echo from his daydream into the tangible world.

His hands were shaking, but he couldn't bother himself to steady them.

No one could see them under the water anyway.

Out of curiosity he looked down and marveled at the cloudy bath water, how it remained so still despite his desperate movements beneath, how it afforded him such beautiful protection – translucent and warm.

Combined with the reliable strength of his hand and the unreliable softness of the washcloth, the hot water became a powerful shroud, hugging his desire even while it seemed slippery and tentative at times.

He wondered if this were anything close to the way a woman's hand would feel. Perhaps not so hard, perhaps not so rough. But with a bit of gentleness and a softer touch... Yes, that was how it would feel.

Of course he was only supposing.

He had seen Esme wash her hands, and play the piano, and smear paint onto canvas, and twist her fingers when she was nervous. He knew enough about her personal subtleties to know how her hands would work in almost any given situation. Even one as unthinkable as this.

She was... an artist.

That thought put him so close to the edge.

She was also a broken woman.

That thought brought him back from the edge.

But she was a broken woman who longed to be healed. Healing in this case could take any form, he supposed. As a doctor he could improvise easily. And he knew Esme needed to be healed in so many ways – mentally, emotionally...physically.

His hips nudged up into nothing, stirring the water a bit on the surface and sending some splashing over the rim of the tub. He could hear his breath catching faster, but all he could do was hope no one was listening.

His doctor's instinct infused with his animal instinct, the thought repeating seductively in his head. _Heal Esme... I must heal Esme..._

It was a direct order to himself, but it made so little sense that it became more of an empty phrase. He simply took to the way it sounded in his thoughts, sinking deeper into his subconscious, motivating the tiny muscles beneath his belly.

But the sensation was not only physical. It never stopped there when he thought of Esme. It ran further than that, like a punch in the gut, awakening him to all of the reasons for his existence. He was thinking of all those heartbreaking things she had been through, the unfulfilling life she had led as a human, how she had been mistreated as a woman and a wife. These thoughts nourished the fire in his loins until the quintessence of his passion was boiling deep in his heart. He could feel it all rushing together, creating something unseen and dangerous, something charged and convulsive.

He found himself wavering on that disturbingly pleasant ledge, perilously close to bliss but taunted by the bittersweet urge to pull back. If he were only innocent enough, good enough, restrained enough he would have done it in a heartbeat. But because he was a disaster and imperfect and unrestrained, he gave himself up on it.

But this time it felt as if there had been a reason behind it.

This time his motivation was not just physical need. It was emotionally charged, almost fueled by sympathy as much as arousal.

Only it hadn't reached her.

His venom was clouding the already cloudy water instead of warming the cradle of her soul. Here it was poison. Inside of_ her _it could have been...precious.

The anger rippled through him, urging his hand to reach for the drain lock at the bottom of the tub. With a quick yank, he pulled it out and watched as the cold water began to sink rapidly around him, consuming the evidence of his lust along with it.

There were quick footsteps in the hallway – footsteps that undoubtedly belonged to Esme. She was so light on her feet, always slightly panicked, it seemed.

"Let's take a walk, you and me," Edward said softly from downstairs, his voice perfectly natural though his thoughts must have been urgent.

"Yes, I think I could use a walk," her voice responded, the muted bell of her sigh chiming in the back of Carlisle's head. His chest tightened as he listened to her slide her boots over her feet and step outside the door after his son.

Edward knew so well when circumstances begged the woman to leave the house. Carlisle wished there had been a more proper way to thank his son. But it was true, the best way to thank Edward was to simply never mention what was really going on.

Outside he could hear the snow crunching from their footsteps as they left in the other direction. A hollow howl of wind confirmed their absence, making him feel all the more empty when he was at last alone in the house.

On the window, his candle flickered with pity for him. As the last of the water slipped away, he found himself utterly naked in the tub, his flesh coated with the filmy residue of soap. He took the washcloth and washed it away, touching his body with uncertainty and fear, as if it did not truly belong to him.

Sometimes he felt that this was _not _his body.

Two and a half centuries, and he still stared at himself in the mirror with a disconnect he could not seem to resolve. He stared at himself like a scholar would stare at a statue – with unfamiliarity, and a slight discomfort. His posture was always awkward as he stood before the reflective glass, still so unsure how to handle this unpleasantly natural grace. No matter how he arranged his limbs, altered the weight of his legs, straightened his back, he could not find a single position that did not remind him of the concrete bodies that held up the pediments of ancient ruins.

This was not the body he had been blessed with at birth. This was a mask, a shell, a ridiculously morphed variation on what he used to be.

_The body is a temple, _his father used to say. But what was a vampire's body? A temple, or a prison?

It pained Carlisle to wonder what Esme might think of her changed body. Was she as uncomfortable with it as he was with his? Did she feel as detached from her flesh, as cold when she saw her full reflection in the mirror?

How he wished he could see _her_ reflection in this mirror.

The thought revealed before him the fleeting image of her slender form, draped in soft gray shadows as she stood beside him in front of the bathroom mirror. The sight of both their bodies together, in mutual nakedness was shamefully stirring though it was nothing more than a feeble image in his mind.

Esme's flesh was warm and pink even in the darkness, making his own skin look paler than eggshell. She stretched her lovely arms above her head and turned slightly, observing the fine slope of her back beneath waves of long, reddish-brown curls. Her feet fit perfectly between the squares of tile as she took two steps forward, looking more closely at herself in the glass. She lifted her large eyes to meet his, and smiled impishly when she caught him staring. Though she was just a figment of his imagination, he still ducked his head in embarrassment.

The dream carried on weakly through his wavering interest, his ears picking up the faint sound of imagined footsteps on the wet tile as she walked over to the window where his candle was still shining bright. He lifted his head to watch her bask in the low light from the flame, letting the glow spread across her flawless female curves. Her eyes closed happily as she gathered her silken hair to one side, exposing the creamy skin of her neck, her shoulder, her back.

He took an unconscious step forward, testing his balance on the tile. But when he reached out to touch the tempting mirage, she feathered away into nothingness.

Carlisle beat himself mentally over it all – these distracting desires that were sticking to him like glue. The only way to expel them was to sit before his journal and spill them all out as words.

He would take advantage of the time he had to himself, without his son to listen in on the thoughts that cascaded restlessly through his mind.

Resisting the urge to shatter the bathroom mirror, Carlisle rushed back to his bed-less room, and quickly tucked himself into the first clothes he saw dangling lazily from the drawers of his bureau. In a second's time he was behind his desk in his study, rummaging for a suitable ink pen.

He was running low on blue ink.

Blue was his cathartic color. Something about it seemed to draw the emotions away from his heart more reliably than the others. Not wanting to waste the blue for now, he settled instead on a shade of green. But there were so many shades of green to choose from. Some were like the fronds of a baobab tree, still and proud in the sun; some were like the algae at the edge of the sea, drifting towards eternity. But there was one like the deepest, richest emerald – the way the raw stone almost glowed between two halves of a geode. He chose that very shade of ink, for he felt it would best emphasize what he needed to write.

He settled himself down halfway on his chair, the back of his shirt coming untucked from his trousers as he hunched over the surface of the desk, gripping the pen too tightly as he suspended it over the page.

With the first spatter of shocking green ink, he already felt the power of his desires subside into relief.

_God, you have made her so beautiful. You have spared her no blessed feature. You have granted her with unmatchable loveliness and such tempting talents. I owe the credit of Esme's perfection to you . . . yet I often entertain the idea that _I _have made her this way. That my venom, having run its course so fully, infected her with the very beauty I desired to find in my own heart. I longed for a beauty I had yet to find, and now I have found her. She is partially _my _creation, yet I have surrendered every scrap of my control over her for the sake of her freedom. _

_Esme is a free woman because I wish her to be free. Still, in my heart I hope she holds true to her promise to stay with me always . . . _

He glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, the tiny ticks telling him to rush. Ten minutes until he must leave for the hospital. Several more until Esme and Edward would return from their walk.

Breathing hard, he bowed his head back over his journal and attempted to purge the last of his thoughts before the clock chimed.

_Lord, if you must, punish me. I wish not to think of myself as weak, but in your eyes, I surely must be. Is it a sin to say that I care no longer for my own honor? The only thing that now keeps my burden is the honor of the woman. _

_I have been told that to want is to sin. If this be true, then curse me for wanting know too much! Curse me for wanting to know what it would be like to have her shudder beneath me; curse me for wanting to know her darkest thoughts, her deepest desires. Curse me for it, but do not keep me from it. I have asked so many times for my burden to be lifted . . . But there is a secret part of me that longs to keep this burden, a part of me that relishes in it. It is true; sometimes I find myself aching from it, but this ache I have grown to savor. _

_I do not wish to expel my desires for I have also been taught that every feeling you ignite in a man's heart is good. So I must assume what I feel is good in some unearthly way; that what I feel must have some higher purpose. Should it be so wrong that I find pleasure in it? My pleasure is not so selfish, I think. Some nights I long to do nothing but _give _to her. But I am tired of giving material gifts. Quite soon, I fear, I will reach a time when I must give a part of my soul instead. Nothing less than this will be satisfactory. Nothing less will fulfill me. Esme deserves nothing less than my entire being, if only she would have me._

_But I fear this deeply. Should she come to desire me in the way that I desire her, how will we find the justice to consummate our love? Are those things that are holy in the previous life still holy in this life? I have nothing to fear but my own trepidation in the face of such a decision, that my choices will fare well for us both, that my judgment will keep her feeling safe and loved despite the trauma from which she has escaped. I fear that I will reach this moment, unprepared and quaking, and Esme will depend on me to lead her through the fire . . . a fire I will not have the courage to pass through. _

He felt the weight of the words themselves spread over his body, infecting his chest with heaviness and heat. He felt as though he had fallen victim to an actual fever, his brow throbbing and his neck sweltering as if the sun were glaring over him.

His wrist became too tight to move properly, and the pen in his hand came to an abrupt halt, ripping through the flimsy page.

The tick of the clock grew louder until he could no longer ignore it. Slamming the journal shut, he reached instead for the telephone while keeping his eyes on the clock.

He felt inexplicably nervous as he waited for the operator to link him to the hospital receptionist. Each fuzzy, gurgling tone on the other line sounded like demons chuckling in a distant dimension. He tried to concentrate on what his excuse would be, but before he could come to an agreement with himself, someone had already answered his call.

"You've reached the medical staff offices of Saint Thomas More Hospital. How may I help you?"

Carlisle easily recognized the receptionist's voice. "Agatha?"

His voice came out rough and ragged, ironically enhancing his intended scheme for feigning illness.

The voice on the other line wavered unsurely. "Yes? Who is calling?"

He cleared his throat, feeling commendably awkward. "Doctor Cullen."

"Oh!" she squeaked in surprise. Her voice sounded far sweeter, far less stoic when she next spoke. "My apologies, Doctor Cullen. I didn't recognize your voice."

He shifted anxiously in spite of himself, feeling the cross around his neck grow heavier as he weighed his decision to lie.

"Well, I am...very ill at the present time."

It felt like anything but a lie.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, Doctor." Agatha clicked her tongue in pity. "Throat feeling sore?"

_Among many other body parts._

He pressed a hand to his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "High fever," he confirmed.

"How awful! I do hope you have someone there to take care of you."

Her genuine concern made his chest ache in that funny way it did whenever someone showed interest in his well-being. He discreetly coughed away from the receiver, hoping the pause would excuse him from having to reply to her remark. "I will make up my hours tomorrow," he promised, letting his voice falter. "However, I feel that I will work better with a full day's rest first."

"Of course..." The connection fizzled a bit as she spoke, causing him to miss several words. "...but I hope that you are well again by morning."

The guilt hit him full force when he heard the concern in her voice.

"Thank you," he whispered as he absently closed his journal and pushed his pen aside.

"You're in our prayers."

And the line was disconnected.

Carlisle sat in stillness for a moment, soaking everything in as he listened to the chime of the clock. The chill of the room soon enveloped his body, chasing away a bit of the uncomfortable heat that had risen inside of him.

His "fever" lingered in limbo while he continued to watch the clock through blank eyes, waiting for Esme's return.

Sometime soon, he thought, he wanted to teach her how to carve. He briefly imagined fulfilling his promise, how he would surely spend that time watching her hands, leading her with impressive finesse. She would watch his hands as well while he worked, admiring every move he made; she would be _forced _to watch every detail, every nuance of the way he moved his fingers in order to learn the ancient craft herself.

The imagined scenarios quickly grew too intense once again, and he shifted his thoughts instead to prayer, asking for the power to calm the feelings. He could not count how long he sat there, with his eyes tightly shut and his heart twisting in agony. It was only when the far away sounds of someone pacing by his door caught his attention that he looked up from his meditation.

"Oh!" Esme's eyes were wide and her lips very red, as if all the blush from her cheeks had gathered there instead. "I'm sorry. I'll come back later—"

She offered him so brief a view of her face before turning away that all he could do was yelp at her not to go. "No! Come in, please."

He stood up immediately and gestured her to come inside with his hand, hoping that would affirm his insistence. She stepped inside at his bidding, and a swift wave of her scent hit him like the silken edge of a sword. Her eyes were large and unblinking, her lips full and pouting. She stared back at him as if waiting for him to speak, but all he could do was gaze in wonder at her now that she was _here_. He supposed it was true that after so many hours spent daydreaming about someone, it suddenly became incredible when they were finally in your presence, real and whole.

This was the real Esme, not a figment or a mirage. This was the one he could touch and smell and see in full patches of bright, cheerful colors. This was the one he could listen to and talk to. The one whose feelings he could mend just as easily as he could injure them.

"Did you want to talk about something?" he asked her timidly, hoping she would say yes.

She looked to her feet, then quickly back to him. "I, um... I wanted to know when you were leaving today."

"I'm not leaving," he told her, helpless to keep the small smile from creeping onto his face. "I called in ill. I was stretching my hours as it was."

"Oh."

He watched as her face quickly straightened to hide the mirth that had burst into her eyes.

"Were you trying to get rid of me, Esme?" he asked teasingly.

"_No._" Her voice failed to make the word an exclamation, and instead it came out sounding more like a slightly shocked sigh of pleasure.

He suppressed a chuckle as he approached her, hypnotized by her scent and her awkward charms. "Why did you ask me if I was leaving?" he queried softly.

"I was just…concerned," she explained, shrugging as she stepped back. "Because on any other day you would have left for the hospital by now." Her eyes flickered toward the window before he could offer any further explanation for why he had elected to stay home today. "Have you seen that it started snowing again?"

The sheer excitement in her face was contagious.

"Yes." He turned to peek out of the window where more fluffy white flakes were dancing in the wind. He normally would not have noticed something so mundane, but Esme's interest in the scene had made it exceptionally appealing. "Let's go out, shall we?"

She practically leapt out the door as soon as he opened it.

"Can you believe that just four days ago, this snow was up to my knees?" she giggled as she scampered through the fairly shallow snow.

A peaceful smile found its place on his lips as he watched her step playfully through the white powder. "Before you know it springtime will be here again," he said, staring out at the landscape that would be green again in several more months.

"And I'll no longer be a newborn." She'd said it beneath her breath, but he could still hear the wistfulness in her words.

"No," he sighed quietly. "You'll be like me."

"Edward said the same thing," she pointed out with a happy smile.

Carlisle tried not to show his irrational hurt as he asked confusedly, "You spoke with Edward about this?"

"We were just talking about what will happen once I join society again," she replied calmly.

Grateful he hadn't missed anything too serious, his brow eased with understanding. "Don't worry yourself over it now. When you're ready and the time is right, you'll know it."

"I hope so." She seemed so nervous about it already.

A little bit desperate to comfort her, he smiled broadly – the sort of smile that had to be censored at the hospital where there were very delicate hearts in the vicinity. "I have a feeling you're going to surprise yourself."

"It's not that I'm not excited for it," she admitted, lowering her face to stare at the ground, "but I do wonder sometimes... how that first time will feel…"

After her words had burrowed within his heart, she looked up again, meeting his eyes like the sun meets the morning mist. He felt himself melting slightly under the heat of her stare, and most of all he felt transparent.

A most unfortunate misinterpretation on his part, but her words were so painfully close to his own insecurity; in a far different realm than to what she was referring.

"Sometimes I imagine that I'll be there, ready to take the next step and suddenly I'll want to run away."

Oh, he knew exactly how she felt. If only he could share with her just how much.

"I think you underestimate your own courage, Esme," he said, lamenting that his "ill" voice had returned again with a vengeance. He cleared his throat to heal it and continued, "But if you ever did feel the need to run, you know that you can always run to me."

For a second after the words fled his lips he wondered if they were too forward.

"It sounds almost as though you are _encouraging_ me to run, Carlisle," she said wryly, her eyes suspicious.

"Not _encouraging_, I'm just…making you sure you are aware of your options. I would never want you to feel pressured into doing something you aren't yet ready for. You can take as long as you need to adjust to being around humans. There wouldn't be any reason to rush."

"I won't lie, it would be nice if it happened quickly for me."

He smiled patiently. "All you need is faith, and it will."

"And if I still want to run?" Her eyes could be the most glorious weapons when she challenged him.

"There is no shame in having a safe haven," he retaliated with soft deliberateness.

Carlisle relished in the way Esme took his comfort to heart. It was subtle, but he saw the way the weight left her shoulders and the worry fled her mind. He felt his face grow slack as he stared at her from head to foot, taking in the endearing contrast of her crooked skirt and her perfect hair; the runner in her light brown stockings, and the way the taut cuffs of her sleeves seemed to cling so lovingly to her elbows.

She turned around as if his staring had made her uncomfortable, and she busied herself by drawing with the toe of her shoe in the snow, while humming the song from her music box.

Carlisle couldn't quite explain what had struck him about it so severely, but hearing her hum that melody like it was second nature filled him with such profound contentedness. It was like he was falling in love with her for the first time all over again. He rested his cheek against the cold marble column on the porch, wrapping both arms loosely around it in an absent hug. He could have watched Esme from that place forever, just listening to her hum while she danced about carelessly in the snow.

Then, like always, Esme caught him staring. "Is something the matter?"

"No, nothing." His reply was automatic.

She narrowed her eyes in a way that told him clearly he wasn't fooling anyone.

"You were humming that song," he revealed with a sigh. Only the sight of her dancing had been more adorable than the look she was giving him right now.

"Oh, I hadn't even realized." She looked as if she had wanted nothing more than to bury herself under the snow.

Taking advantage of her embarrassment, he said, "Perhaps you would sing it if you remembered the words."

She whipped around in surprise. "There were words?"

"Yes," he said quietly, cupping his hand to gather snowflakes while he watched her carefully from the corner of his eye.

"And how do _you _know this?"

Now came the best part.

"Because you sang them to yourself when you were sixteen years old."

He had known her face would be priceless when he revealed this to her, but he hadn't even come close to imagining how unfairly _beautiful_ she would look when her lips fell open and her eyes grew dewy with memories. "I once sang that very same song?"

Carlisle nodded, thoroughly enjoying the way he was helping her to piece it together slowly. "I'm afraid you were under the impression that I could not hear you… but as you now know my hearing is rather impeccable," he teased.

"Then you remember the lyrics." Her eyes widened and she leaned absently closer to him, as if marveling at the apparition of an angel who had come bearing a precious prophecy. He nodded.

"What are they?" she demanded breathlessly.

He recited the lyrics upon her request, soft as a lullaby, and he could feel her heart following his every word. Her eyes remained locked to his until the last line of poetry melted on his tongue.

He smiled at her, watching the memories gather behind her mystified gaze. "Now you must sing it for me."

A delectably awkward giggle worked free of her throat, and he struggled with the simultaneous desire to laugh at her and to crush his lips against hers to silence her.

"Now don't be so bashful," he said, smiling tauntingly. "You have sung it for me before, after all."

"Yes, but I didn't know you were listening," she retaliated pointlessly. He could see in her face that she wasn't really trying to argue her way out of it. The possibility that she would consider singing for him sparked a most foolishly fervent hope in his heart.

"Well, obviously I was," he responded smoothly, hoping to hide his excitement under the surface.

Esme sent him a coy grin as she violently crushed a chunk of snow between her hands. "Then you don't need to hear it again, now do you?"

She was teasing him. Mercilessly, if he must be honest.

"But I _want _to," he gushed, letting his head fall against the pillar in anguish.

"Carlisle…" She teased him with the melodious way she dragged out his name, each syllable a chiming note that only strengthened his need to hear her sing. "I can't sing _in front of _people."

"You wouldn't be singing in front of _people,_ Esme," he corrected. "Only me."

Her teeth cut slightly into her bottom lip as she looked away bashfully. "You know what I mean."

For a moment Carlisle took pity on her. She was clearly shy, but he could not ignore that glint of interest he had seen frolicking in her eyes. He was convinced that she truly wanted to, she just needed a bit of gentle persuasion.

"Please, Esme. You had such a lovely voice then," he flattered her shamelessly, every bit of it true. "I'm sure it's only lovelier now."

His heart gave a shiver just _thinking _of how lovely her singing voice would be now.

She lifted her head to look up at him tentatively.

"Well..."

Just one little wavering word from her and he was sure his eyes must have been brighter than a beacon in a foggy bay.

"I suppose I could sing just a few verses."

He was about to encourage her verbally, but decided it better to remain silent for fear that she might change her mind. It was such a fragile situation, but now that she seemed somewhat at ease with the idea, he didn't want to risk ruining it.

Her hands folded discreetly over her belly while she took in a few breaths, clearing the nerves. He only felt the tiniest bit of guilt that he was making her nervous – hearing her sing was all that mattered to him now, as selfish as that was.

But Esme was too kind to refuse his request.

Sooner than he'd anticipated, her full lips parted, and the most glorious song came forth. If he had ever recalled the echo of angels singing from his youth, Esme's voice bested their beauty by miles. It was not that her voice was flawless, more that it was so full of charming passion, so clear and bright and cheerful. Everything she sang reached her eyes and lingered there, glittering like gemstones of purest joy.

He had never truly paid attention to the lyrics of her song before. He'd spent so many nights listening to it clinking idly on her music box that he'd forgotten the significance of the words that went along with the melody. Only now as Esme sang them did he understand the story they told.

These lyrics were about being in love.

In love with the sea.

_Such an injustice it was that Esme had never even seen the sea._

As the last lines left her lovely lips, all Carlisle could think about was whisking her away to the edge of the Atlantic. He burned to show Esme all seven seas in one night's time. He would not let her rest until she had seen that endless blanket of blue silk stretching toward a sunset horizon.

When her song was finished, Esme's eyes blinked fast, as if coming out of a dream. Her gaze had been glued to his the entire time, truly making him feel as though the song was meant for his ears alone. He had no way to describe how special this made him feel, how rife with affection she had left his heart.

"That was not so mortifying, now was it, Bright Eyes?" he asked her, the breadth of his grin almost impairing his ability to speak.

She ducked her head at the endearing nickname as she had always done, her face still blazing with the afterglow of having sung for him. He wanted so dearly to kiss her somehow...

Perhaps just on her cheek. Even her hand.

He could do it, he thought. His chest felt like it was full of fiery wires of steel when it hit him, how easy it would be. She was in such a soft state of heart right now, surely she would accept that innocent touch of his lips as a simple, polite token of gratitude for the gift of her song.

He watched her circle giddily in the snow, kicking up clouds of white powder with her shoes. Her oblivious sweetness was doing great damage to his heart. He tortured himself just by watching her, unable to deny how much he _wanted _her.

As if she had heard his indecent thought, Esme turned her head sharply and nailed him into stillness with her blackened eyes. Only when he caught the inviting scent of a passing deer did he place the true cause of her reaction.

One second they were in the yard, the next they were sprinting through the woods after the coveted deer.

His shoulder slammed against Esme's with every rough step they took, in off-balanced synchronization as they ran beside each other, stalking their prey. It was all happening too fast, and he vaguely worried that he was hurting her each time his body collided with hers.

The run seemed to last a small lifetime. Normally Carlisle would not have indulged the animal in such a long chase, but his pity for the beast had fallen by the wayside in the face of his excitement. Sprinting alongside a woman was so addictive, so invigorating. He felt like he could conquer the world when Esme ran beside him.

Her heavy breathing created a rhythm for his pride, pushing him past the limit. He wanted to do something impressive – to slaughter the deer himself and offer it entirely to Esme, to snap its neck so swiftly she didn't have time to catch her breath.

But it was by both their efforts that the doe was finally brought to the ground. The body landed with a hefty thud, sending a spray of snow everywhere. Carlisle moved quickly over the animal, seizing its head and twisting it back till the bone snapped in half.

His mouth filled with venom against his will as he tried to convince himself that Esme deserved to feed more than he did. Before he could give into the temptation, he turned away unthreateningly, offering it to her. "Go on."

"But don't you—"

"Go on," he interrupted, waving her on as he stood up. "I'll find my own." One glance in the direction of the utterly desolate woods did little to boost his confidence.

"You'd have to run for miles," she protested. "It's barren out here."

The sound of her insistence was so welcoming, he couldn't bear the thought of leaving her for one instant. He turned to get a glimpse of her where she was gracefully poised beside the warm carcass, one hand on its back while her other hand anxiously twisted the ends of her hair.

"Neither of us is dying of thirst," she said sensibly. And after a pause, she added softly, "We'll...share it."

An approving gush of venom flooded beneath his tongue as he considered her proposition. Carlisle never remembered being so thirsty for the blood of a simple deer before. The hard winter season had been rough on his thirst. It was impressively kind of Esme to even offer him blood that had been promised to her.

She blinked at him, her face imploring as her fingers absently stroked the fur of the doe. She was irresistible.

"Alright."

He would just have to be sure he let Esme have most of it.

Her eyes widened as she lifted the doe's front leg onto her lap. "She's so...heavy," she remarked in surprise.

The implications had his venom flowing again.

"The longer they're chased, the more their muscles build up. The blood gets warmer as well," he explained, with all the breathless enthusiasm of an experienced connoisseur. "It makes for a better feed."

His desperation must have been obvious to Esme while she watched and listened to his eagerness. It embarrassed him slightly when she offered him the first drink.

As much as it pained his throat to protest, he had to for her sake. "But the blood will be cold by the time I've taken my share."

He could see a silent debate taking place behind her eyes. She had opened her mouth briefly, either to argue with him or to offer a better solution, but only silence persisted. As brief as that glimpse between her lips was, he had seen the glistening venom that coated her tongue and teeth. It motivated him to think faster.

"Take the neck," he ordered her at last. "I'll take the hind legs... or better yet, the abdomen." He petted the belly of the doe and looked to Esme for approval. "We'll drink at the same time."

He thought he saw her eyes light up somewhat. "You're sure?"

"Yes, go on." He eagerly moved out of the way, welcoming her closer.

He spared himself a moment to prolong his thirst – as painful as it was – just so that he could watch her drink.

She dove down upon the deer's limp neck in earnest, slicing through the hide with her sharp teeth. Her eyes flickered in ecstasy, hiding behind her thick lashes as the blood rushed through her mouth. Shiny tendrils of her hair slid past her shoulders, her little fingers absently rubbing the fur on the animal's front leg, like one might caress a baby to sleep. Carlisle's eyes wandered down briefly to find that the runner in her stockings had stretched from her ankle all the way up to just behind her knee. Beneath the torn fabric he could see soft skin peeking through, and his body flushed at the sight.

She was a titillating little mess. Everything about her in that moment was positively electrifying. He was almost disappointed to interrupt the show by forcing himself to drink. But the drive to sate his own thirst was too overwhelming to keep ignoring for much longer. As soon as his fingers discovered a weak spot, he lunged down to bite the animal's belly.

He supposed it was because his mind still lingered on Esme that all his thoughts were sexual. This rarely happened when he drank alone. The satisfaction one felt from drinking blood was thoroughly different than the gratification achieved by sexual means. True, it was no less potent, but it was certainly nothing like what he felt now. Blood gave him a sense of strength and contentedness – an ecstasy purely from having quenched his physical thirst. It was typically an _end _to an ache, not the beginning of one.

But now the taste of blood was nothing but erotic. It trickled down his throat, into his body and lingered there, like the deep, heavy warmth that settled in the pit of one's stomach after orgasm. All he could think of now as his lips sucked the blood from his prey was mating with the woman across from him. He was not even looking at her, but she was all he could see. In his imagination, it was Esme he clutched to his chest, it was Esme he drank from... and not only from her neck.

She sounded her pleasure in tantalizing little whimpers as she drank, and it fueled the reality of his daydream. He was trapped in the fantasy, prolonging it with every swallow he took. He found the fattest artery beneath the doe's flesh and stroked it with his tongue, spilling warmer blood for his mouth to steal.

He _thought_ he could hear Esme panting beside him, but in truth he was unable to decipher what sounds were real and which came from his imagination. It seemed that every time he uttered a groan, her voice was echoing his, higher and breathier.

To any bypasser who might have happened to hear them in the dark forest, it would have sounded like they were making love.

In Carlisle's thoughts, they were.

In his thoughts, Esme's thighs were soft and pliant beneath his hands. In his thoughts, the sweetness that stained his lips came from her nectar. He was so close to the edge, he feared he would lose control before her very eyes. All it would take was one more moan from her, and he would be gone.

Just as his desire reached its pinnacle, he grabbed the deer's thighs so roughly that one cracked under the pressure of his grip. What he had just felt inside of the deer's belly erased every last drop of his arousal in one fell swoop.

His stomach turned unpleasantly as he forced his teeth to unlatch from the animal, backing away with a look of horror on his face.

Naturally, Esme noticed right away. "What is it?" she asked him fearfully. Her terrified tone tempted him to panic, but he knew he had to stay calm at all costs.

"Nothing, I'm just... I'm satisfied," he excused as casually as he could manage, raising himself up off the ground to stand on his feet. He gazed down at her, frantically thinking of a way to keep her from lingering here too long. Somehow he had to convince her that they didn't need the rest of the blood.

But Esme wasn't going to give it up so easily. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, leering at the bite mark he'd left in the belly of the doe. "You haven't even finished—"

"It's fine," he snapped at her unintentionally. "Just leave it."

This seemed to anger her fantastically.

She crawled over to the place he had abandoned and bent her head threateningly closer to the bite. Her stubbornness made him sizzle with an odd mix of frustration and admiration.

"But I'm not going to let it go to waste..."

"Don't worry about it," he said, struggling to keep his voice calm but still firm enough that she would listen for once.

"I'm still thirsty, Carlisle!" she shouted at him. A brief flash of their restrictive days in the cellar sickened his memories. "For God's sake, let me at least have the rest!"

Even though he knew it was only her thirst talking, he still felt an irrational sting of hurt. All he was trying to do was protect her.

"No, Esme!" he roared at her, but she did not even flinch. Senseless as it was, he yelled at her one more time. "_Esme, don't!"_

Into the deer's belly her teeth sank.

He held his breath pointlessly, as if it would help him prepare for what was bound to come next. Esme was about to have her heart shattered. He had to be ready to deal with the consequences.

Her head jerked back in shock, and her defensive instincts led her to break legs of the deer entirely with her own hands. The place where they had both bitten was now frightfully weak, and the force from Esme's retreat caused the flesh to tear straight across the underbelly, spilling the contents of the mother deer's uterus onto the snow.

Esme's horrified cries stabbed Carlisle straight to his chest. Her reaction was exactly as he had feared, but the true sight of her agony was ten times worse than he could have ever anticipated. He hadn't felt so awful since the day she had killed a human child in this very forest.

Just like he had done on that day, he gathered her shuddering body into his arms and attempted to console her through senselessly soothing words. "Esme... It's all right, darling. Don't look at it."

He should have known that saying that was only going to make her look.

"Please _don't look_, Esme." He ground out the words harshly against her delicate ear as he pressed his hand to her cheek, forcing her to turn away.

He struggled to keep his hold on her as he began to walk fast in the opposite direction. But God have mercy on her, Esme was just too morbidly curious to keep under control. He didn't fully understand why she _wanted _to go back and see it again. He was nearly tempted to take her back himself, but the wiser part of him knew that would only cause trouble.

Unthinkingly he pleaded with her to calm down. It made her seethe.

She hissed madly and scratched at his hand, trying to move her face away from where he had it buried in his shoulder. He'd forgotten how strong she still was.

"I'm taking you back to the house, Esme," he told her firmly, with that same removed dispassion that he was forced to use when talking to one of his psychologically unsound patients. "Did you hear me? I'm taking you back."

Her ceaseless sobbing shattered him. "It was still alive!"

"Hush! Esme, I don't want to hear another word about it, now move!" He pushed into her back, hating himself for having to use force on her this way.

Her voice dropped to a low tone of morbid wonder. "But it was... so..."

"Esme!"

He was unable to hold her with the same firmness that he had allowed to control his voice. Instead he touched her like she was made of china, his warm hands aching at the feel of her chilled cheeks. Her body was cold and shaking, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap her in his arms and take her home to the fire.

Carlisle breathed in deeply, finding his peace though the stress threatened to consume him. In a gentle voice he asked Esme to look into his eyes. Her own eyes were glassy, dark, and full of fright. Her lips were tremulous, and her hands were still clutching the sleeves on his elbows as he held her face still.

"It is dead now," he whispered with certainty. "They're both dead,"

"Did I kill it?" she panicked.

"Shhh. No. I did." He instantly took the blame upon himself, desperate to placate her.

"But I was the one who—"

"It doesn't matter," he lulled her patiently, relying only on the power of his voice and his gaze. "Shhh... it doesn't matter."

It was amazing how her breathing settled with just a light caress of his fingers through her hair. The ends were frayed and matted with snow and blood. Where they had once been silky and tempting caramel in color, they were now damp and as dark as burnt firewood.

But her face. Oh, her face. She was so close to him – so close that he could see the wild clashing of colors in her two-toned eyes, like scarlet glitter tossed into golden sand.

He suddenly felt so very much taller than her.

He thought it was the way she was looking at him that enhanced this curious illusion. She stared up at him like he was her king, her eyes flooded with adoration and dependence and something frustratingly unfamiliar to him.

Helplessly, his gaze fell to her mouth where a droplet of blood had left a faint pink trail over her delicate chin. He could not tell whether his attention lingered because the mark was appealing or distracting. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

Regardless, he wanted to make it disappear.

Carefully removing one of his hands from her cheek, Carlisle pulled the cuff of his sleeve neatly over his hand and twisted it tightly around his two forefingers. He raised the knot of fabric resolutely to his lips, Esme's wide eyes watching intently as he moistened the cotton with his tongue then dragged it gently down her chin.

Her lips were astonishingly supple, like red rose petals made soft and limp by a humid summer's day. His covered fingers had touched just the corner of her mouth as he passed over it, leaving a sparkle of his own venom on her lower lip.

He had expected the sight to set flames to his desire. He had thought that something so erotic would surely drive him insane with the need to kiss her and taste everything she was hiding from him. But instead the moment seemed to calm him remarkably, a peaceful stillness quelling his frantic thoughts and soothing his urges. He finally felt as if he had marked her in some way, even if that way was as distant as leaving a droplet of his venom on her lip.

Esme closed her eyes as Carlisle began to whisper to her, subdued words that relied only on tone and timbre for their purpose to comfort. "It's over now," he sighed against her forehead. "You never have to see it again." He knew the words were partially untrue – that even against her will, the memory could turn up in her mind again, that she would never be able to fully forget the sight. But white lies often did a man good when he wished to comfort a woman.

His words started this way – repetitive and meaningless. But they soon bordered being intimate in ways that he should not have shared. _"_You're safe here with me," he found himself whispering. "I'm taking care of you..."Soon he felt that he was trying to assure himself more than he was trying to assure her.

"I won't leave you," he murmured into her hair, dragging his fingers up and down the soft planes of her cheeks. "Let me hold you closer..."

She let him hold her closer.

But she barely seemed to be awake.

This tempted his tongue to speak indecently. If she did not listen to his words, he could say whatever he wished and it would have no repercussions. He could say out loud how soft her skin felt, how sweet her breath tasted, how deeply he cared for her.

Carlisle feared that, if he kept speaking, lines from his love letters were bound to come spilling out instead, so he slowly tapered off into the safety of silence. He waited in fascination as the tremors began to vanish from her limbs, her hands securing themselves over his on top of her cheeks. He pulled his hands away, supposing the gesture to mean she was ready to stand on her own now. Her eyelids lifted and the cloudy gray light filtered through them strikingly.

A pair of cardinals sang innocently some distance away; the icy breath of a soft breeze cooled the heat in his flesh. If he had not found that unusual niche of tranquility, he would have missed the silent 'thank you' in Esme's adoring eyes.

With her unspoken consent, he linked his fingers around her elbow and began to lead her out of the forest. His gaze followed the westward wind blowing through the pine trees, making them bow their heads a bit, snow falling from their tops and into piles below.

"I honestly don't know if I will ever get used to this," Esme's quiet voice interrupted the silence.

"You will," Carlisle assured with a sigh. "You've just been having poor fortune so far. It isn't always so...gruesome." His hand on her arm held more tightly, out of a subconscious will to protect her. "You shouldn't have had to see that."

He watched from the corner of her eye as her face was drawn into a distressed pout. "Does it ever make you sad that they run away from us?" she asked him, barely audible behind the howl of the wind.

"It did at first," he admitted solemnly. He hated to think of that time in his life. "I don't let it bother me anymore," he half-lied, wanting to give her something positive to look forward to.

She fell into a slower pace beside him. "How do you ever find peace with something like that?"

"It took me _years,_ Esme," he reminded her fervently. "It took Edward months. For some it comes naturally and for others it does not. But we all must overcome our discomfort if we wish to survive."

"But they'll always run from me. I'll always be their predator," she said in a small, morose voice. "I hate that."

Seeing her degraded to such a standard was appalling to him. All he wished was for some way to take all of her concerns and insecurities away. But how could he do that when he himself felt just as lost so much of the time?

Confounded, Carlisle replied with the only defense he could think up. "In all fairness, a deer isn't likely to approach a human with any less trepidation, Esme."

It was a good point, he thought, and she seemed to at least partially agree with him. "But so many animals enjoy the company of humans," she pointed out. "_Everything_ flees at the sight of a vampire."

"Not everything."

She stopped in her tracks and sought out his eyes, doubt coloring her beautiful features.

"Do you know the only animals that are not frightened by us?" he asked her, so delighted by what her reaction might be that he waited not a moment before answering his own question. "Butterflies."

Her lips flinched as if struggling against a begrudging smile. Even the hint of it sent his relief skyrocketing. Something in what he'd said had made her happy.

He raised both eyebrows and gave her a soft, charming smile. "It's true."

"Butterflies? Really?" she was still dubious, but less so than before.

All he could do was nod his head and hope she believed him.

"Why?"

She had accepted the truth, but now she wanted the reason – always too curious for her own good.

"I never quite understood why," he confessed, then supposed thoughtfully, "I think perhaps they're attracted to our scent." He lifted his arm for her to take as he helped her over the uneven ground.

"So you're saying when the springtime comes, I can go outside and hope for hundreds of butterflies to swarm me?"

The hopefulness in her voice would have never allowed him to say no.

"That may very well happen," he said a bit mystically, watching with elation as she finally let a timid smile fill out her beautiful lips.

The sight of their home just yards away was so welcome a sight that Carlisle found himself emitting a wistful sigh of relief when they reached the door. He brushed the snow from his hair and shoulders before he let Esme inside. Somewhere upstairs Edward stirred at their entry, no doubt surprised at what events had unfolded in his absence.

Knowing Edward might be eager to protect her, Carlisle sent a silent thought of complacency to his son, assuring him of Esme's well being. As soon as the thoughts left his mind, Carlisle heard Edward head towards the attic instead of coming downstairs. It was a silent way to signify that they were on the same page.

Carlisle turned to watch Esme remove her boots with a heavy sigh, swiping at the dirty snow caked on her skirt. She would be wanting to take a bath later on... So would he. What a waste this morning's bath had been, he thought, only able to shake his head at the irony.

He felt badly for her as he watched her now. She still seemed to be carrying a weight on her shoulders, her posture slightly slouched where it was usually impeccable. Her hair was a mess, and there was blood on her sleeves. The runner in her stockings had extended all the way past the hem of her skirt now, and he was sure it must have reached her thigh… Her eyes were no longer frantic with worry, but they were a bit hollow for his taste. He needed to cheer her up somehow.

"You know I have not forgotten that I've yet to give my real Christmas gift to you," he said as soon as the thought crossed his mind. She seemed a bit startled by this, albeit pleasantly so.

"I thought that music box was very real," she said pointedly.

Her reminder bruised his eagerness for a moment, making him realize that overwhelming her with too many offers might take away the special quality of a single significant gift.

But he felt this was too important for them to pass over. "I promised to teach you how to carve," he said gently.

He was relieved to see her eyes brighten just a bit. "Yes, you did."

"Well, I would like to fulfill this promise sometime soon," he all but whispered, for some reason lacking the courage it took to speak at full volume.

"How about on New Year's Eve?" she offered with a tiny but contagious smile.

"Is that significant somehow?"

She shrugged one shoulder and her smile grew ever more lopsided. "I think sometime around the beginning of a new year is a good time to learn something new."

"Naturally," he agreed with a soft chuckle. "All right then, New Year's Eve." He was about to go into his study when curiosity got the better of him. "Did you have anything in mind for what you'd like to carve first?"

She tucked her bottom lip beneath her teeth and shook her head. "I hadn't really given it much thought."

He grinned to himself. This couldn't have been more brilliant.

"Why don't you take a look through that sketchbook of yours?" he said, smiling significantly as he stepped behind the door to his study. "There might be something worthy of inspiration hidden in there."

He accidentally winked at her before closing the door, the image of her adorably confused face lingering in his mind.

The next thing Carlisle heard was the sound of eager footsteps charging up the stairs. And this time he knew they did not belong to Edward.


	27. Wishing on Fireworks

**Wishing on Fireworks**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 48: Seal this Contract" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

Carlisle recalled the very first time he had heard Edward call him by his first name. Like any other memory that took place after his transformation, he remembered it with a breathtaking vividness. Edward's eyes, as dim as garnets, staring up at him from under a blanket of firelight. He had been lying on the floor when he said it, just in front of the fireplace with his hands behind his head and a book laying face down on his stomach.

_"What are you doing with that, Carlisle?" _

So many times he'd heard his formal title from the boy's lips. The dry, distant, two syllable word: _Doctor. _

To hear his full, three syllable name being drawled in Edward's youthful voice had been... indescribable.

He'd paused with his hand clutching the small glass of water he had carried into the room. Edward's eyes motioned to the glass questioningly as he repeated the question, _"Carlisle? Why are you holding a glass of water?" _

Edward's lip quirked up in a suspicious smirk, as if he'd just caught the elder man talking to his sculptures again (which he was also wont to do).

The glass of water was no longer the point of interest between them. Of course, Carlisle carried it around with him as a useless prop, another one of his fruitless endeavors to make himself feel more human. He'd had so many of those little habits back then. Edward had helped him to break almost every one of them.

_Do you know how long it has been since I've heard someone call me by my given name? _Carlisle's thoughts filled the silence._ No title, just my name. Forever, Edward. It feels like forever._

Edward had looked at him in utter awe, the realization of that burdensome grief making its mark on his youthful, inexperienced mind at last.

Edward would never look at his sire the same way again. Neither would he ever be calling him "Doctor" again.

It was one of the few memories that time had left completely untouched. Carlisle could return to it – just the thought of it – and feel just as much emotion as he had on the day he'd lived through it. Now, he could not believe how blessed he was to be hearing it daily. Every other moment, his name rang out in the halls by either a male or female voice. They were both delightful songs for him to hear, and he had grown so accustomed to the common address that he'd forgotten how much it had stung him _not _to hear it for weeks, sometimes months at a time before he'd found Edward and Esme.

They were more than he had ever dreamed he would have. They were, he felt, truly and sincerely, his family.

Carlisle smiled at the thought as he finished dusting off the work tables in the wine cellar, finishing the last preparations before Esme would arrive for her carving lessons. The cramp little room was not particularly inviting, but he had done everything he could to make it feel more welcoming and less oppressive. The candles in every corner, he thought, helped. Lanterns were fine, but they didn't give off that flickering, dancing glow that candles did. Nor were they as romantic.

He shook his head in embarrassment. All he'd come down here to do was clean things up a bit, and he had ended up trying to create some kind of trap for her. It was subconscious, of course, but that didn't make it any less foolish.

He stood back and gave the small room one last critical look, deciding that enough had been done to make her _want _to be here. If there was one thing he knew about Esme, it was that she was not difficult to please. She played a game of graciousness with everyone, never having a negative thing to say about their efforts if they were done with good intentions.

His intentions were only the best.

_True, all he really wanted was to find himself wrapped in her arms, several items of clothing short, perhaps on the floor somewhere..._

It was useless pretending with himself any longer. No matter what excuses he made for his actions, deep down he knew that _everything _he did was done in the hopes that they would somehow find themselves feverishly disrobing each other while their tongues dueled to the death.

It was why he lit candles everywhere, in every room of the house, every morning before he left, and every evening when he returned. He had to be prepared.

It could not have been more ironic considering he'd not so much as kissed her yet. All the progress he had made in that department was staring at her lips for hours while he knew she wasn't looking.

Her lips. Dear Lord, they promised a bountiful kiss – one he feared he would never know.

He was too busy wasting his time tidying up wine cellars and slipping secret poems into her sketchbooks.

Exhausted by the circular depression he seemed to have fallen into, Carlisle resolved to accept things for the way they were. Esme was happier than she had ever been these past few days, and he was not going to lose sight of this because his heart was selfish enough to want more.

_His heart only wanted to hear her cry out in ecstasy. _

He slammed the toolbox down with ungrateful force and turned his back on the dancing candles, breathing in slowly to calm himself down.

No amount of lust would override his need to care for her and provide for her; to simply _be there _for her.

If this was what _she _needed, then he would see to her needs before he took it anywhere further. This was meant to be a joyful time for them, and he was going to embrace it while it lasted.

But as soon as she entered the cellar, he noticed a small problem.

Esme's dress was torn…a few inches up from the hem.

When she walked forward, he could see the slim line that split her stockings from dark to light across her thigh. That was the part no man was _supposed_ to see. There was something taboo about that line, as elusive as he felt it was, always hidden beneath a woman's skirt. It was like a boundary, a line that was not meant to be passed, either by hand or gaze. He pulled his eyes away when he caught that very brief glimpse of it, anxious that he would find himself distracted already from so little a thing.

He felt heat crawl up his face, the same way ivy climbs stone – slow and sly and deliberate, with the intention to consume him and make him crumble from the outside in.

Esme was lingering now, expecting something from him. He prepared himself with a quick breath and a natural smile before turning around to face her. "Alright. You've been keeping it from me all week now. What is it you're so excited about carving?"

"I want to carve hands," she said. Then she came closer to him.

She smelled like a wedding bouquet.

Carlisle wanted to know every secret of that scent, to lean into her, graze the tip of his nose along her skin, into every nook of her body. He wanted to extract every note that was hidden in the spellbinding perfume that clung to her.

"Hands?" he repeated, all but offended by the beauty of her choice. _He should have known. _He felt his palms brush together subconsciously against his hip. He was still smiling, but only just.

"Yes, but not just any hands," she continued. "I want to make something very specific."

Feeling as though he were being hypnotized, his eyes widened by a margin as he told her to _go on_.

He saw her gently bite down on her lower lip, letting her teeth sink slightly into the soft flesh. He wanted to pause time and slide his tongue across the little indentation she had left behind, soothing the pressure away. He knew that his eyes must have looked drunk with wonder, but he didn't care.

"I want to make two hands, holding one another... sort of like this."

He watched intently as she clung her fingers together, lacing them into all sorts of lovely knots. He feared he would lose his ability to speak, so overcome with wonder that both he and this woman seemed to share the same sensual obsession.

_Holding hands. _She wanted to carve a pair of holding hands.

If she'd only known how many times he had attempted to carve this very subject without crushing them in frustration over his loneliness. Carlisle thought briefly of the shattered wood chips he'd left in various places across the globe, a restless vagabond in his artistic crusade who had never found a home. He'd found it too painful a process to carry through to completion, knowing that in the end he would have a masterpiece that he could never replicate in real life. Two hands, frozen in the wood, taunting him with their contented, everlasting embrace.

It seemed a cruel slap of fate that now Esme wanted to take on this very challenge. Yet... Perhaps this would bring him the redemption he had longed for all these years. He could help her bring her dream to life, and this time he would have the inspiration to finish it.

"That's a lovely idea," he said, keeping his voice clear, "but it will be very challenging, especially for a beginner. Any form of human anatomy is never simple in structure. It is something I still struggle with in my carving."

_For different, much more emotional reasons. _

"I'm willing to take on a challenge."

It was when Esme said this, sounding so bright and sure of herself, that Carlisle felt his eyes were finally open after being half-way shut since she came into his studio. Something had cleared away from his mind; whatever had been clouding his conscience before was now free.

"Then I am willing to teach it," he replied.

All of a sudden, the wind's icy arms brought Edward into their midst, helping him along down the cellar staircase while his fingers hurried to finish buttoning his tunic. Carlisle groaned mentally at his son's foolish display.

"Carlisle, I've decided on what I'm going to carve," Edward said jovially.

"What might that be?" Carlisle was almost afraid to ask.

"A squirrel."

"A squ—Edward, honestly."

"Yes, and then I'm going to give it to Esme since she _adores _her squirrels so much," he gushed with an exaggerated grin. Esme ate up the senseless little joke happily, and Carlisle decided it better not to pry.

He tried not to feel hurt that her quiet giggling that had not been the result of anything he had said or done. At the same time he hated to be the one to put an end to her apparent mirth, as much as he craved her undivided attention. This was supposed to be an opportune moment for them to bond, but Edward was invading their privacy.

Carlisle threw a brief, challenging glance at his son from over Esme's shoulder. Edward stared hard back at him, as if silently telling him, _You don't like the way things are going? Then why don't you do something about it? _

Oh, he was a sly one. This was Edward's greatest form of entertainment. Although Carlisle could not deny that it came with an advantage for himself. Edward's intrusions were the only way Carlisle would be encouraged to fight to make things go his way. He was beginning to realize now that everything his son did was purposeful. Edward was trying to make this work just as hard as his father was.

Esme was the problem here.

Such a beautiful, enchanting little problem.

"Come with me, Esme, I want to show you the different tools you'll be using," Carlisle instructed her, hoping it didn't come across too firm.

She scampered along behind him, then paused in shock as she looked at the covered table top. "There are so many of them!"

Pleased by her excitement, he laughed victoriously. "Don't be overwhelmed. You'll likely only be working with one or two for a while as you're just starting out."

He began to explain the purpose of a rough-cut chisel when a brief, appealing thought entered his head. Acting on the whim, he placed his palm against the blade and looked at it with disapproval.

"Needs to be sharpened?" She fell right into the trap.

"It is a bit blunt," he lied. "Stand back for just a moment."

If this was his only way to empower his confidence, then it would have to do. He relished the weight of her eyes on him as he carried out the unnecessary sharpening of an already razor sharp blade. His arm worked back and forth, scraping the blade against the stone a bit more harshly than he normally would have, emphasizing every movement while she watched. It was enough to have her watching him in strictly physical action, perhaps more so if he exaggerated the force of such action to impress her just a little bit more.

He knew Edward would be reeling in silently scathing laughter at his behavior. But hell could only care at this point.

Esme was still watching him.

Carlisle let his arm settle at last, lifting the chisel to give it a final, false look of approval. "There."

Esme sighed.

Carlisle's chest felt slightly bigger.

Edward resumed his carving, a bit more forcefully than before.

"Now what's this one?" Esme's voice came from behind as she pointed to the most delicate looking tool on the table. She seemed a bit disappointed when Carlisle told her that the detail knife would not come into use until much later.

He continued to demonstrate the use of the other tools to her, feeling glorious as she laved his every word with her attention. She looked at him with that stricken wonder she did whenever he told her of the exotic places he'd been. _This _was how he wanted Esme to look at him, every day, all of the time.

Apparently he didn't need to pretend to sharpen tools to earn it.

"What's in here?" she asked, not bothering to wait for his answer before she picked up the jar of highly toxic polish.

"Wood polish. We use that to finish the piece."

She opened the lid and inhaled the potent aroma, which nearly sent her eyes reeling backwards. "Oh...my..."

He resisted the urge to laugh as he sealed the lid and took the jar away from her. "There's a reason we prefer to use it outside," he said pointedly.

Her eyes sparkled with the apologetic residue of mischief. "Sorry."

"If you had still been human that may have caused you to faint," he whispered warningly.

"But I would have had a doctor right beside me," she said with a cheeky little smile, her hand suddenly reaching over to teasingly tap his waist.

That subtle touch of her hand seemed to have knocked the wind straight out of him on contact. He was vaguely aware that his laughter must have sounded both unnatural and purely ridiculous as he struggled to overcome the effect of her touch. Sweet fire licked his ribs one by one, ending with a wonderful sting when it reached his heart.

When he came to his senses he saw her running her hands over a chunk of pale blue marble, and he wondered how she had even found it. He had to keep a constant eye on her or one of these days she would be likely to dig up one of his journals.

The thought startled him back into reality.

"This stone is so beautiful," she said while she explored the smooth texture of the piece in her hand. "Do you have any sculptures made from this?"

Esme seemed to know exactly what questions to ask.

"I do, actually," he said, subtly trying to cover his excitement as he headed over to the cabinet where he kept his older figurines. A smattering of dust danced out from underneath the box as he set it down on the table in front of her. Esme leaned over it, her eyes adoring as she peeked inside at the tiny dolphin figurines.

"When I first came across the Atlantic to the States I was fascinated by them – the dolphins," he reminisced, his senses treating him to the lost aroma of salty ocean brine. "These were some of the first figures I made when I arrived here."

He touched a careful finger to the fin of one sleek blue dolphin. He had forgotten how small in scale he had made his carvings before becoming comfortable with the stone.

"I don't know how you do it," Esme sighed, her fingers hovering protectively over the figurines as if they were real animals.

"You will once you start practicing," he said, smiling in spite of himself. One day he was certain Esme's fierce little fingers would rival his talent in the realm of sculpture.

"Can I work with this stone as well?" she asked, indicating the blue marble.

Carlisle cleared his throat softly, deciding how best to discourage her politely. "If you haven't decided on a medium yet, I would suggest using pine wood. It's much softer than the stone, more suited to a beginner. Not that you aren't strong enough to manage it of course," he added quickly, "but those little details are going to give you trouble later on if you choose stone instead of wood."

"Oh." She looked away when he placed the stone back on the shelf, and he felt a little guilty.

Trying to inject brightness into his voice, he asked enthusiastically, "Now, how are you planning to carve these hands of yours?"

Esme looked around nervously, suddenly clutching one of the hand tools with a hopeful expression. "With...this?"

He stifled a chuckle at her misinterpretation as he lowered her hand. "No, I meant have you decided on a...position?"

Her head tilted to the side, her eyes curious.

So she was going to make him explain himself. That was fine. He could only use it to his advantage.

"There are many different ways in which hands can be holding each other," he murmured suggestively, his body thrumming with excitement for what he was about to do. "For instance...like this."

Pushing past the barrier of air between them, he reached forward and boldly grasped her wrist. He always seemed to forget how perfectly small and delicate it was until he was holding it. She twitched slightly – an expected reaction – but her face showed no signs of discomfort, so he decided it wouldn't hurt to prolong the demonstration.

"Or this..." He cupped the back of her hand so that the curve of hers matched his like a cradle.

"Or perhaps a bit more tightly, like...this." One by one he let his fingers sink between hers, the breadth of them forcing hers to splay apart to accommodate him. He did not stop applying pressure until he felt each of his fingers resting in the soft spaces between hers. Then he held her tighter.

Esme's eyes were shining, fixated on their hands as if she had never seen anything like them before.

"I like this way best," she murmured, the words blooming raw from her throat.

Carlisle did not notice his son's sudden departure from the room; his eyes had been focused so intently on Esme's face that it seemed everything but her had turned to dust around him.

"Then... it would be wise for you to look at our hands from every angle before you start carving them," he said slyly.

Esme lowered her head in what Carlisle determined to be an imperceptible nod of consent. Her eyes began to dart about, examining their linked hands with a studious but fascinated expression on her face. He held her hand within his all the while, making snug little knots with their fingers...but he _felt_ these knots in his stomach.

Her eyes were exquisite, seeing those little nuances that no one else could find. He wondered if he were human, would his hand be blushing beneath her gaze? He could feel some heat stirring against his palm where he touched hers. She was so soft, so pliant wherever he dared to press. Such proof he could apply to the rest of her body, around her waist, inside her thighs, between her breasts... Everywhere, she would be like this. But he only felt her hand.

If she could love him with only her hand, this would be enough.

His breath slowed into a pattern of steady adoration while he watched her. For a brief moment he lost control of his perfected stillness, aching to know her skin just a little bit better. He let his thumb stroke the curve of her outermost finger where it lay contentedly and without protection. It was such a small gesture, she probably would not even notice.

He just needed to _feel _her.

The satin of her skin did not disappoint.

"Does that help?" he asked, in all effort to sound innocent.

"Yes...Thank you." Her voice seemed to be shaking slightly – or perhaps his imagination had caressed it into sounding that way. They both let go of the other's hand at the same understood moment of parting, but her soft smile had eased the pain.

Unable to think of a decent way to say "you're welcome," Carlisle settled instead on a wordless bow of his head, which inevitably drew his attention to the quiet mystery lingering behind her eyes.

"So... I've been meaning to ask. What was it that inspired you to carve holding hands?" he inquired, his curiosity so insatiable he felt it was making his throat dry.

"Something you put in my sketchbook," she admitted, an impish dimple playing in her cheek. He lifted both eyebrows in further inquiry and was rewarded with a breathless elaboration from her hallowed lips. "An untitled poem. _I burn when I hear my name on your lips...My heart is swollen with sweet, troubled fires_."

A beautiful sensation filled his chest, like the idle twirl of a child's musical mobile – it went round in circles about his heart, stimulating vigorous wonder within him. Hearing such devout poetry spoken by Esme's tender voice reminded Carlisle of what it felt like to be a hot-blooded man.

The words were perfervid, but her tongue had cooled them elegantly, through the steadiness of recitation.

She did not mean them as she said them.

But _he_ had meant them when he'd written them.

"Ah, _that_ poem." His discomfort came shining through with the accidental sweep of his hand through his hair.

Immediately, Esme's eyes sparkled with epicene suspicion. "You know the one I'm talking about, don't you?"

His belly twisted and his throat tightened as his thoughts frantically stirred a response to her question. He felt himself losing control of his modified modern tongue, liable at any moment to start mumbling outdated pronouns and rambling in his father's Elizabethan accent. It was a mesmerizing curse he had, how old speech always seemed to creep up on him whenever he was nervous.

Sometimes, in times such as these, it was so terrible that he had to remind himself what changes to make before he spoke.

_Switch the 'aye' to a 'yes.' Combine the 'I' with the 'am.' _

"Yes. I'm...familiar with it."

_Swell job, Cullen. A successful, comprehensive reply. _

"_How_ familiar?" Esme's fierce, feminine demand struck him somewhere in the solar plexus. Her eyes had taken on a strangely beautiful almond shape as she narrowed them suspiciously at him. He was forced to reconsider the possibility that vampires did indeed perspire when she stared at him like that.

In defense he kept a straight face and an even straighter tone as he answered rather flatly, "Enough to know that there is no direct mention of holding hands in that poem."

He could feel a bonfire being lit behind his neck, tongues of heat licking his shoulders beneath his suspenders. His brief bout of irritation with her for intruding quickly expired when she looked deeply at his face, as if piecing him together feature by feature. Her attention unsettled him at first as he felt it a threat to his privacy, but after a moment her gaze simmered into calm orange velvet.

"Well, it wasn't the words themselves that inspired the idea for hands," she explained almost shyly. "It was more the emotion I felt from the poem, the desperation and the longing – the need to be cherished, to be held..."

Carlisle felt the world stop turning for a second, allowing him that precious speck of time to admire how keen her heart's ability to read another's was. It was a small miracle that she had been able to extract these precise emotions from his written words alone – a series of emotions he had not even been able to name but a few years before he'd found her.

_If only she knew just how deep and dangerous that longing was, now that she was in his life. _

"Desperation..." The word charred his tongue and vanished into the air like smoke, leaving behind a bitter black mist.

"...Is not a bad thing," Esme added with a smile like springtime. Her eyes and cheeks became brighter as she intercepted his wandering gaze. "In fact I would say desperation is a beautiful thing," she elaborated, tenderly tying an anchor for his confidence. "Our strongest emotions are often the ones that inspire the most powerful art."

An awkward smile tugged on his lips, and he couldn't bear to think of what he looked like in that moment, how obvious he must have made it for her. He hid it as quickly as possible, but the flushing light that filled her eyes told him it was too late.

_She must have known the poem was his. _

For all his talent at hiding his true emotions on a daily basis, Carlisle was a terrible actor when it came to direct confrontations with a woman.

Shame entreated his eyes to ogle the floor.

Esme turned away from him, preparing to begin her first sculpture. It was then that he allowed his eyes to come back to life, skimming up her slender back while she faced the other way.

It was everything about her in that moment. The fact that her dress was torn at the thigh, the way her hair cascaded over her shoulders like liquid firelight, the twitch of her delicate toes where they hid inside her stockings.

Something intrigued him to do it, something awful. He could bring no justice to the decision, but before he'd even spared it a thought, his fingers were unbuttoning the collar of his shirt.

In theory, this simple gesture could have lit the thread to a thrilling chain of cause and effect. But of course, it wouldn't.

It was...experimentation. Just a brief chance to act on a fantasy. He wanted to be open to her, perhaps emotionally as well as physically. But for now the physical was all he could control with his hands.

He was being dishonest by telling himself that he didn't care whether or not she noticed. Because he _did _hope that she would notice the bonds of those three little buttons had been broken. He wanted her to see what lay beneath. He wanted her to wonder. He wanted her to crave his flesh as he craved hers.

It was all wishful, sinful, pitiful. Vain.

He didn't care.

The last button was freed, but it wasn't enough. His fingers discreetly tugged both sides of his collar open, as if doing it quickly would preserve his innocence. He knew it was not an accident. And as his eyes peered down at the small golden cross that gleamed against his bare chest, he could no longer manage to suppress the pride or the pleasure.

"Carlisle?"

He nearly jumped at the sound of his name, seized by the irrational fear that Esme had somehow caught him in the act.

His hands froze in place.

"Hm?"

She never even turned around. "I honestly don't even know how to begin here."

His relief was potent as his lungs expelled a long, delirious breath. "Oh, of course. Forgive me."

He found the rough cut chisel as easily as a father would find the hand of his young son in a crowd of people. It was first instinct to reach for that worn wooden handle, and it felt remarkable in his fingers. He nearly had to restrain himself from immediately whittling away at Esme's block of wood.

"You're going to want to start with this," he said as he gave her the intimidating tool.

Her fingers clasped it with endearing uncertainty, and he found himself smiling wickedly at her trepidation.

"Alright, now just take the edge of the chisel and cut straight into the wood to shave it away little by little." He demonstrated the motions as he instructed her, patiently guiding her hand over the surface of the wood.

His hands parted with hers, hovering just above them while he watched her repeat the motion by herself.

"Like this?"

"Just like that." He nodded and tucked his hands behind his back to help them behave. "Now I've already measured the dimensions for this block of wood, and it seems just about right to fit both our hands inside. All you'll want to do for now is smooth the edges down until it's mostly rounded on the top, but keep the base flat."

She nodded as she continued scraping away bits of the wood with the chisel. Her body language was making it obvious – she was already bored.

"Erm...How long does this usually take?"

"A long time," he responded in a low voice. He smirked softly as he watched her shoulders fall slightly. But Esme was not one to give up so easily. The very next swerve of the chisel took a larger chunk of wood out. She was getting the hang of it already.

"Do you think you can manage on your own for a while?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

She nodded once without looking back. "Yes, I think I'm good now."

Indeed, she did appear that way. Carlisle was genuinely surprised by how quickly Esme seemed to have taken to the complex art. Her hands were talented – this he already knew – but her devotion was just as impressive. And that was what sculpting required above all else.

He gradually moved back to his own table, but he could not take his eyes away from her. He had never taken the time to imagine the way a woman might look behind the carving table where he usually stood alone. Esme filled this room with such delicious security, such comfort and sweetness. She made it feel even more like home. There was no scene more enticing than seeing Esme surrounded by his artwork, sliding the chisel with determination over what would soon become her first carving.

Carlisle turned his attention reluctantly down to the task before him, extracting the white elephant's tusk from its protective cloth before he resumed the sanding process. The good thing about working with sandpaper was that his concentration could waver without any danger. His fingers were not responsible for handling a blade, so his eyes could stray from the work of his hands to the beautiful woman across the room.

Esme was exquisite while she worked.

Her eyes were fixated, and her mouth set into a stern looking pout whenever she was lost in concentration. The balmy scarlet gleam of her full lips enticed him, made his heart tremble with need. He watched those lips being kissed and caressed by the reckless candlelight, and he became teary-eyed with jealousy.

Abruptly he turned away, hoping that immersing himself in his work would bring him the much needed peace of mind he sought.

It never ceased to astound him that some people could find the process of sculpting to be under-stimulating. For Carlisle, using his hands to create something almost rivaled the thrill of the hunt for blood. It was a hunt for his soul, he supposed, whenever his hand met the chisel. He would become lost in wood, in stone, in ivory; whatever the medium, he found something enrapturing within its depths. He entered another world when he was carving. It was a natural high, a perfectly legitimate outlet for his pent up passion.

Of course, it went without saying that his passion often found other means of escape.

His choice of art was a sensual one. He had been well aware of the risk when he had first taken it up as a hobby. But being in the same room with Esme while engaging in it brought a vista of new, frightening risks to the table.

It was the constant stroking motion of the sandpaper in his hand. It was making him…too warm. The only thing he could think to do about it was to write. Pen against paper was the deepest healing he had to offer himself for a pain such as this.

He kept a pencil and notebook nearby for those moments.

_I have stared at you far too long, Esme. I must turn my back now, though I do so with sharpest regret. _

_I can hear your breath, the sounds of your hands building, creating, making art. If you were human I would also hear the rhythm of your heart beating. I must wonder now if it would be as sweet a sound as I remember. Would your heart beat indecently in my presence? Or would it be tranquil, soft, barely a beat above the scrape of your chisel? Would I strain to hear it, or would it strain to feed my ears? _

_I must wonder if you, too, gaze upon me with deep eyes while I work. It is vain of me to entertain this, but I cannot keep myself from wondering if your heart has trembled at the thought that my hands have cured thousands. That the challenges I have placed before myself have all been conquered in my will to save lives, to spare souls. Does this not set fire to some affection within you, dearest Esme? Is not the strict crusade of my chosen lifestyle noble enough to sweep you off your feet? _

He wrote the note in three parts - three times he spared himself to devote his hand to the task of writing, if only to plunder his soul. He felt better once the words were real, but he could feel Esme's eyes brazenly scanning his back while he wrote. She was curious about his behavior, and well she should be.

He was almost proud that he had confused her.

Carlisle prepared himself with a deep breath before he carefully turned to face her direction. He had guessed she had stopped working, and he was right. She had stood silently, peacefully watching him while his back was turned. Her eyes were keen with interest.

"Do you need help?" he asked her softly.

"No, I was just...taking a break," she murmured as she cautiously approached his table. "What have you been working on?" She gestured to the object in his hand.

"Oh, this is an elephant's tusk. I've been sanding it for a few days now, mainly for aesthetic reasons. I'll be polishing it today. It will look much nicer after I do."

He feared he had started rambling, but to his surprise, Esme's interest appeared just as hearty as before.

"It's beautiful," she stated, tilting her head forward to observe it more closely. Her eyes were rich and shining, like the skin of a plump persimmon.

Carlisle smiled, pleased. "I'm surprised you think so. Not many people would think of this as beautiful."

A beam of hidden pride shone upon her sweet lips. "Not many people are artists."

"I don't think it is simply because you're an artist," he said, purposefully suspending the remark so that she would seek more.

Her delicate eyebrows lifted promptly in question.

"You appreciate its simplicity," he added quickly, then a bit shyly, "its...well, purity, I suppose."

He stared solemnly down at the smooth ivory bone, dragging the corner of the clean cloth along its surface.

"You know me well," Esme said. He looked up to find a genuine smile on her face, and he could have sworn his heart had begun to race. _If only he did _know _her._

"I'm beginning to_ see_ things the way you do, I think," he said, careless to cover the inflections of passion in his tone.

"It's strange to think I could have an influence on you in that way," she said suddenly, looking away as if in shame.

"Why do you say this?" He frowned and the false heartbeat inside his chest fizzled out.

"I don't know." She shook her head, a few ringlets tumbling over her shoulder. "I guess I've always thought that, because you've lived for so long and had so much time to develop your own view of the world that nothing anyone else said could ever change it."

She drew discouraging lines in the sawdust with her fingers, and he fought the urge to grasp her hand before her fingers reached the end of the table.

"Pardon my saying this, Esme, but that could not be further from the truth," he told her, hoping his words, if honest, would bring her chin up again. "It may surprise you, but I've yet to live a single day of this life without learning something that has changed the way I think. My fundamental beliefs remain the same – that is something I hope will never be swayed – but you'll find that as the times change you learn to grow with the times instead of bearing against them."

He could feel the wisdom of experience flowing through him, and the high he received from sharing it reminded him of how it felt to speak to Edward sometimes, as a father speaks to his son. When given the opportunity to offer Esme this kind of guidance, Carlisle was overcome with a sense of _purpose. _

Her eyes lifted slowly, opening to his once again. He savored his reward briefly before he continued, "Along the way you will discover many things, meet many people, and go through countless experiences that will ultimately shape who you are for years to come."

Unexpectedly she turned away from him. He panicked inside, wondering if he had offended her with his words, berating himself for failing to remain silent when he had the chance. But her very next words soothed his concerns.

"This frightens me. Becoming a different person."

Her voice was hardly tremulous, but he could hear her uncertainty even when she tried to hide it. Quietly he moved to stand behind her, sensing that she needed him near.

"You've already made it through the greatest change of all," he reassured her, biting down the urge to reach out and lay his hand on her shoulder. "Everything from this point on will only enlighten you, enrich you for the better."

He wanted her to turn around so that he could see her face, what his words had done to her, whether it had been favorable or not. His hand shook with the effort not to clamp down on her shoulder and turn her around himself. He had to maintain his patience if he had any hope of getting through to her.

Somehow he always managed to find the right words.

"Not all change has to be frightening, Esme."

She stiffened slightly, her head lifting to stare ahead as she murmured, "It is the fear of the unknown that weakens my heart."

In sheer relief that she had spoken, he began to chuckle. "You're beginning to sound like me."

He knew that would make her turn around, and to his joy, she did.

"I like the way you speak."

She looked up at him with such fondness, her face painted with sweet sincerity. She blinked for a moment, unaware of the spell she had cast as a quick-corner smile tweaked her lip.

"Sometimes it can be conspicuous," he excused hastily. "I was absolutely awful just a few decades ago." He shook his head in embarrassment at the memories that came flooding back. "It wasn't until I started conversing with Edward daily that I began to adapt...well, with the accent, and...everything." He fought the need to cover his throat with his hand and turned his eyes away from hers before adding, "When I first met him, Edward told me I sounded like Macbeth."

Esme graced him with the rare richness of a laugh that was anything but timid. He wondered why she always tried to cover those laughs with her hand.

With confidence restored, Carlisle smiled at her. "Even bedridden with the influenza, he had an impressive sense of humor." His mood cascaded in melancholy as thoughts of Edward as a human filled his mind.

Esme severed him free with her kind voice. "Your accent was one of the first things I noticed about you when we met, too."

Carlisle blinked dumbly at her, surprised that something so matter-of-fact could appeal to him so strongly. It was the reason behind it that intrigued him. She had found his voice moving enough to remember it all these years later.

"That is because I wasn't trying to hide it from you," he admitted. It seemed the more simple his confessions were, the more damaging they were to his confidence.

"Did you often try to hide your accent from your patients?" She quirked an eyebrow, and that beautiful expression of womanly worldliness drew over her features, making her look like something off an Alphonse Mucha poster. Esme was the only woman Carlisle knew who could manage to look both infinitely kind and intimidating at once.

"Yes." He answered fast before he could gulp. She was all but _demanding_ honesty with that stare, and he couldn't hold it back if he tried. "But with you I felt...comfortable. Unthreatened."

An electrical current weaved comfortably around them, filling the room with plush heat and unwavering weight. Their exchange hung in the air between them, protected by their innocent, mutual smiles. The moment came and passed, just as it always did.

And if he wasn't just imagining things, every time it happened, it took a little longer to pass.

"Help me smooth this edge?" Esme asked at last, gesturing to the block of wood she had left behind on her table. He agreed with a smile, walking up behind her to take hold of her hand with the chisel in it.

He guided the blade smoothly over the rough spots, peeling away the splintered bits of wood as it passed. Esme was afraid to use too much strength – he could feel her restraint as he held her – but as a result she was being too timid with the tools. She couldn't seem to find the balance between too delicate and too rough without his help.

He secretly hoped she would never find it. Then he would have a perfect excuse to help her, hand to hand, throughout the entire project.

He was glad she had picked something as complex as hands to carve. They could be working down here for a while.

"Just like this... See?" He demonstrated the use of the simple tool several more times slowly while she watched. It was agony being so close to her, having to ignore the temptation of cradling his chin in the gentle crook of her neck whenever she bowed her head.

She hummed a note of understanding as her hand seemed to pick up the technique, and without thinking, he settled his free hand on her shoulder. As far as he could tell, she did not react.

His height allowed him to look straight over her head, but he found himself peering across her shoulder anyway – only because it gave him an excuse to lean closer.

He thought she had been getting the hang of it when she accidentally dragged the blade in the wrong direction, her fingers looking clumsy on the handle.

"Ah-ah-ah," he gently berated her for her mistake.

"Is that wrong?" She sounded so shy, and at the expense of hurting her feelings, he couldn't help but be amused by the telltale position of her fingers.

"You're holding it like a paintbrush," he pointed out, tapping the end of the handle with his thumb.

She cocked her head, causing several perfect curls to slide against his open collar.

It was a wake-up call, forcing him to reconsider how close it was appropriate to stand behind her.

He ignored it.

"How should I be holding it?" Esme asked. Despite her flawlessly agreeable tone, Carlisle couldn't help but feel she was really challenging him.

"Your fingers should be..." He paused, searching for the proper word, "...hugging it." She gave a little jolt in his grip, no doubt bottling an inevitable laugh at the mildly suggestive analogy. Or perhaps he was only being paranoid.

Flustered by the slip, Carlisle seized Esme's fingers with slightly more force in attempt to mask his uncertainty. "Use all of them, not just your forefingers," he instructed while arranging each delicate finger on the handle. Her submissive nature was striking for a man of such threatened power. Twisting and touching and tampering with her fingers was so addictive, he could have done it all day long. It gave him a sweet sense of control, without the guilt of dominance.

"Poor child," Esme murmured suddenly, breaking his concentration.

The words, in context, made no sense. But to his heart, they made all the sense in the world.

"What did you say?" he demanded over her shoulder, his hand frozen on top of hers.

"Poor child. Those were the first two words I ever heard you say," she explained in a quiet voice.

The candles danced pleasantly around them as if rejoicing in her shared memory.

Carlisle was stunned, weakened to the core. "Remarkable that you can remember that."

"It's been one of the few details that I've never forgotten," she said, frozen still with wonder. "I can still hear it in my head, clear as day."

Behind her, he closed his eyes and breathed in her scent, reliving the moment he had first walked into her Victorian farmhouse parlor and saw her laying on the couch with her hand on her forehead and her feet propped up on the pillows. The darkness of the room, and her crooked leg, and the frantic little housemaid who had come to greet him. The occasional sparkle of lightning out the window, and the wide open trust he had seen on Esme's sweet, sun-burned face.

"Well, you're certainly not a 'poor child' anymore," Carlisle said, perhaps with a bit more conviction than was appropriate. He gently guided her hand through more carving strokes as he spoke. "You're a very strong, very intelligent, very gifted...woman."

It was despicable how a single word could render him to pieces whenever he forced himself to say it. But saying it to Esme's own ear was even more terrible. Because she _was _a woman now, with a glorious shadow of that naïve little farm girl hidden within her fire-colored eyes. She was warm and real, right between his arms, and she could be _his _forever if he only asked.

The moist weight of venom filled the beds of his eyes, and his carving hand lost its rhythm.

He abandoned her with a painful sigh. "You're doing wonderfully. Just...keep going with it." He tried to keep a kind face in spite of her confusion, and she let him return to the other side of the room without an argument.

The skirt of silence splayed around them.

Carlisle returned to his polishing, committing himself to a half-decent job due to his distraction. He was more playing around than actually working now, and every little move Esme made gave him a reason to look up and stare.

Her elbows were pretty. Quite pretty. They were slightly more pink on the corners, as if she had been laying belly down on a hard floor for too long. That tear on the side of her dress was still there, offering him tempting little glimpses of the silky brown stockings that clung to her thighs.

She was intense with her work, bending her head deep whenever she wanted to see a detail up close. When she did this, her hair would tumble into her forehead and cover her eyes. She would tuck away those errant tendrils with a teasing pair of fingers, a crooked little smile on her mouth as if she were shooing away some nosy children who wanted to get in the way of her work.

He found himself smiling adoringly at everything she did, losing his ability to blink the longer he watched her.

He breathed the rough pattern of a man who had crawled from one end of the Sahara to the other. The venom surged beneath his tongue to accommodate his less than commendable thoughts. His stomach felt tighter with each breath he took, and the candles seemed dimmer each time he managed to blink.

He had to leave.

Spewing out the first excuse that came to his mind, Carlisle dropped his tools on the table and headed towards the stairs as if the room were on fire. "I have some telephone calls to make before I begin my shift this evening. You're welcome to stay here for as long as you like and keep working."

He made himself pause politely while he waited for her answer.

Her lips fell open in a bemused little 'o' as she gave her work a once-over, shrugged and decided, "I think I'll stay for a few more hours."

Rich relief strummed up his chest. With a smile he ducked into the small stairwell, hoping he didn't appear too rushed. "Good. I'll see you in a little while."

He pushed his way out of the overheated cellar and into the frigid late afternoon, clinging protectively to his heart like a child would cling to a freshly scraped knee.

"Where are you going?"

Carlisle looked up, startled, to find Edward standing in the snow with his arms crossed over his chest.

_I'm leaving for the hospital_, he decided through his thoughts.

He bolted into the house as Edward treaded on his heels in flurried confusion.

"What? Why? What about tonight?" he hissed each demand as he followed his father into the study.

"I can't... I—I have to think," Carlisle stammered out loud, rummaging through his drawers for something to write on.

"Carlisle." Edward's voice was quiet but firm enough to make him look up. "Calm down, you're scaring me."

Carlisle released a sigh and ran a stressed hand through his hair as he stared at the clutter on his desk.

_She's so beautiful, I cannot even look at her. _

Edward smirked easily as he leaned against the fireplace. "You're overreacting," he mouthed.

_I know. It happens sometimes. _Carlisle thought bleakly as he turned to look out the white window. _I need a few minutes alone is all. _

"Sure," Edward casually waved his hand. "You go ahead, write some sonnets...whatever it is you do."

Edward grinned guiltily at his father's weary glare and backed slowly towards the door.

_Son?_

He glanced over his shoulder at Carlisle's timid plea.

_Keep her company. I don't want her to be alone. _

Edward nodded and closed the door.

Once alone, Carlisle immediately seized the first fountain pen in sight, unraveled a crumpled piece of paper and poised his hand above the first line.

For the first time in a very long while, his written words had run dry.

******-}0{-**

The afternoon was colder than the morning had been. He twisted a scarf around his neck and wrapped himself inside his coat, but winter still stung his body like a blade when he stepped outside of his house. He felt colder knowing each step he took carried him further away from _her_.

He wished he had given her a proper goodbye, but if he had even tried to venture back into that cellar to see her, he feared he would not have been able to leave the house at all.

Carlisle's lips were drawn in a permanent pout of disappointment as he settled into his car, hoping he would find the ride to the hospital distracting enough to ease his mood. As if things could not get any more disappointing, the engine seemed to have frozen overnight. He tried to start it up again and again, but the damned machine only fizzled down with a discouraged groan.

Getting out of his car, Carlisle slammed the door shut and pulled open the hood to find that a key piece was missing from the automobile's carburetor.

_Edward. _

******-}0{-**

She had been a part of it. She must have.

Carlisle hadn't known what else to think when he'd caught both Edward _and _Esme standing like guilty little children on the back porch. But with their faces so innocent and their intentions so heartwarming, he hadn't been able to abandon them like he had on Christmas.

He wished he could explain to them how they had changed things for him. How working at the hospital used to be the most heavenly escape for him. How all he wanted was to visit people in need of his help, spending day and night by the bedside of an ill human.

But now he was losing the desire to spend every waking hour in the hospital. Where it was once his escape, it now felt more like a trap that kept him away from the people he truly wanted to spend his time with.

Part of him was secretly thrilled that Esme and Edward seemed to want his company as much as he wanted theirs.

Naturally his compassionate heart led him after his son in a ridiculous climb to the rooftop that night. The sun was down but the night was clear. A black sky sprinkled with laser-white stars and a moon like ice shone overhead, making the snow glow on the landscape beneath. The air was electrifying and sweet and delightfully chilly. As slightly masochistic as it was, Carlisle secretly looked forward to watching Esme shiver. She always did on nights like this.

As always, a woman took a little extra time to prepare herself. Carlisle and Edward waited patiently on the rooftop until they heard her at the attic window. Edward started to rise from his spot, intent on helping her, but Carlisle's thoughts encouraged him to remain in his place.

Edward watched as his father stepped awkwardly over the slopes of the roof to reach for Esme's hand as she climbed her way out the window.

As soon as her hand was tucked within his, Carlisle delighted in the fact that neither of them were wearing gloves. Esme's thoughts were somewhat similar as she murmured a timid "thank you," and Edward carefully concealed his smirk as they came to sit down near him.

Carlisle struggled to save the silence for a while as they waited, making several regretful remarks about the weather and other such bland conversation. Edward was doing very little to help him, although his occasional laughter seemed to be keeping Esme's energy alive.

Something about her was...thriving. Just sitting there, very close to his body. Carlisle could feel something a bit like heat radiating from her, something spirited and sweet. She was so _excited_ for the fireworks Edward had promised... Carlisle could only now hope that this promise would be kept before the night was through. After a third glance at his pocket watch, he finally cleared his throat.

"It's getting awfully close to midnight, Edward," he noted, trying not to sound nervous. "Are you sure they're going to show the fireworks this year?"

"Why, Carlisle, I'm surprised at you," Edward said. "Are you suggesting I would lie about this whole thing just to trick you into staying home tonight?"

"That would be what I am suggesting, son." Carlisle's eyes turned instinctively to Esme, catching her face in a lovely smirk of understanding.

Edward huffed. "Will you both just relax? The fireworks don't start until midnight _on the dot_." Carlisle jumped in alarm as Edward's hand reached over to tap his pocket watch.

_Don't do that. _

Edward grinned at his father's weak defense, shaking his head and furrowing his eyebrows as if to say, _'What are you so stressed about?' _

Carlisle turned his eyes away as he slipped the pocket watch beneath his vest.

Edward scooted back against the chimney, giving them some space. "Ahh, I love it up here."

Still in somewhat of a negative mood, Carlisle exaggerated the sweeping motion of his hand as he brushed away the ice crystals beside his legs. "There's snow everywhere."

"It won't kill you," Edward defended curtly.

Carlisle's neck fell back in exasperation. _Are you going to bite back at me every time I say something, Edward?_

His eyes flicked over to Edward's no-nonsense face. It was obvious even without words that Edward wanted Carlisle to do _something _more than just sit here. But what could he have in mind?

A little bolt of nerves tickled Carlisle's insides as Esme spoke. "I don't mind the snow so much. The view from up here is lovely, Edward." She turned to the boy with a beautiful smile. "I'm happy you thought of it."

Her heartfelt appreciation made Carlisle feel all the more guilty.

"Just wait until midnight comes," Edward said smugly, "then you can thank me."

Resisting the urge to sigh loudly, Carlisle bravely took his pocket watch out to see how much time was left until midnight.

"Carlisle, I swear to God, if you look at your watch one more time, I will kick you off this roof."

He should have been expecting some snarky remark from Edward.

To make matters worse, Esme laughed. Her laughter was so frustratingly sweet and endearing, Carlisle wanted to sink into the snow. Or better yet, dive right down the chimney.

In his embarrassment, he missed Edward's next witty comment, leaving him even more surprised when Esme's hand suddenly shot across to snatch the pocket watch straight from his hand.

Accepting his loss, Carlisle let his fingers curl up in defeat.

She could keep it forever if she wanted.

"Well, this is taking too long," Edward groaned unexpectedly, getting to his feet.

"Where are you going?" Carlisle asked, somehow keeping calm in his panic.

"Inside." Edward shrugged. "Maybe I'll do some research on ancient New Year's traditions or something _constructive _like that."

_Son, what are you really up to? _

Carlisle's thought was covered up by Esme's hopeful request that Edward come back later.

Edward's predictable response: "Maybe."

Carlisle's back stiffened in sudden understanding. Edward caught his eye darkly just before he leapt from the edge of the roof. "Isn't it, uh, good luck to kiss someone on New Year's Eve? Or something like that?"

Esme stopped breathing as Edward jumped, landing with a soft thud in the snow below.

"Silly rituals..." Carlisle heard Edward mutter amusedly as he went back inside the house.

The ticking of his confiscated pocket watch carried on, muffled between Esme's tightly bound hands. Carlisle tried in vain to rub the anxiety out of his shoulder while he prayed for something clever to say.

_Kissing on New Year's Eve... Kissing... _

The thought had already buried itself in his mind, and he could think of nothing but this "silly ritual" his son had mentioned before his convenient departure.

_If it was good luck to kiss someone on this night, then he should take advantage of it... Shouldn't he? _

Without taking a breath, Carlisle said the first thing that came to his mind. "The Romans used to kiss on the Winter Solstice to bring about good fortune."

Esme turned to him in interest. "Is _that _where it comes from?"

Confidence flooded him from her enthusiastic response. She was always so hungry to learn; surely this could only help him.

"Mm hm. From my understanding, anyway. Although the English superstitions differed somewhat."

"Oh?"

"Yes..." He peered down at her for a moment before fixing his gaze on the horizon where the fireworks were expected to appear. "Some believed that the first person you saw when the bells chimed at midnight would be the answer to your happiness for the year to come."

As he waited for her reaction, he noticed she had begun wringing her hands in her lap the way she often did when she was nervous. He wondered if she felt the same pressure he did given their conversation.

"That's lovely," she murmured.

"Hmm, yes, I suppose..." He chuckled helplessly. "But Edward is right. It is just one of those silly legends."

"I wonder why it became a tradition to _kiss _when the clock struck twelve." Her emphasis on the word 'kiss' made his chest tighten and his muscles feel like lead.

He almost smiled when he noticed that she was still twisting her fingers together. But then he noticed he was doing the same.

"The kiss..." he sighed, flustered. The word was never more pleasing to his tongue. "Well, in Ancient Rome, a kiss between two people was a way to seal a contract. Kissing someone on the first day of the New Year served as promise that one would be there for the other until the end of that year."

He now refused to hide the flurried fiddling of his fingers as he spoke. It was too late to hope that Esme would not notice his discomfort. As much as he loved sharing his knowledge with her, this particular subject was quickly becoming too painful to discuss in her presence. All he was hoping for deep inside was the chance to kiss _her _right now.

Instead of hoping for something to happen, he had to _make _it happen. For once in his life, he had to take the reins and direct his destiny.

"Will you be here for me until the end of this year, Esme?"

He did not know how he had the power to say the words, but they came forth almost effortlessly under Esme's encouraging gaze.

Time froze as she nodded. "And hopefully far beyond it." The affection in her voice was bright and almost startling; it seemed to slice straight through his heart, like a hot knife through butter

He felt the awkward curve of a smile on his face. His jaw ached, and his lips burned. _How he wanted to kiss her..._

He reached up with the intention to affectionately stroke her cheek, but instead the tip of his finger lingered lightly on the surface of her soft skin, shy and uncertain.

The familiar chime of the grandfather clock vibrated in his heart.

Midnight.

A myriad of stunning colors melted across her face, sparkling in her gem-like eyes and lighting up her full, cherry lips.

The fireworks must have started.

He could hear nothing but the sound of her breath until she finally asked, "Would you like me to seal this contract?"

The meaning of her words dawned on him slowly, sensually. The promise in her smoky voice left him breathless and bewildered. He felt all reason slip between his trembling fingers. He felt the ticking of his pocket watch echo in his dormant heart.

In a heated whisper, he answered her. "If I am to have your word."

She stared at him, and he could almost see his words sinking into her. She absorbed his face with her wide, titillating gaze, and he felt waves of overwhelming heat crawl up his neck. Her lashes quivered as she turned her eyes down ever so slightly to appraise the lower half of his face. Only after the eighth or ninth chime of the clock did he make the connection.

Her eyes were on his lips.

All at once his tongue became frightfully hot, the flesh of his lips tingled, and his body felt more alive than it ever had before. Everywhere inside of him there were thrumming, coiling, racing sensations. And heat, Lord was there heat. He felt so _human_ it was overpowering.

He wanted to reach out with both hands, grab her face and pull her against him mouth to mouth... but something told him to have patience and wait for her to make the first move. So he waited.

He was rewarded with the fiery touch of her fingers as they reverently seized hold of his jaw, drawing him shyly closer as her face tipped back to receive his.

He could not tell if he was moving to meet her, or if he was completely still. All he could feel were her fingers firm on his face. All he could hear was the clock beneath them. All he could see were her lips burning bright, looking fuller the closer she came.

He let his eyes close, entrusting all of himself to her hand.

Startled by her sweet scent, his hand gripped his knee, holding on tightly as he waited for the burn of her lips to meet his.

He felt the burn, right in the center of his left cheek.

When he realized her lips were flush against his skin, he felt something strange. It was a soft nudge – soft but dangerous, like a lion pawing him in the stomach. And as Esme's lips retreated from his face, they left a sweet, moist spot on his cheek that scorched his skin like a spot of angry sun.

All this time Carlisle had been thinking he would be bubbling over with ecstasy when the woman he loved first kissed his cheek. But instead his heart was stinging and his fingers were trembling and he was overcome with the desperate urge to sob.

"Now we shall be together until the end of this year," she said, her promise punctuated by the soaring symphony of fireworks in the background.

He wanted to respond, but his mind was still fixed on her kiss. He replayed it over and over in his head, but no matter how many times he relived it, he could not find any sense in it. It should have been impossible. This was something he had only _hoped _could happen... And now that it _had _happened, he realized he had not been prepared.

This was the first kiss Carlisle could remember receiving since...

Oh, how long had it been? Had he _ever_ been kissed on the cheek before?

It was as if all memories of kissing before this had been erased on the spot, a rough wave spreading across any lines drawn in the sand. Esme's kiss was all he had been searching for his entire life. Just this simplest touch of her lips on his cheek had tilted his world on its axis.

But if she had wanted to kiss him on the lips, she would have done it_. _

Buried deep inside, Carlisle knew the truest cause of his sadness was this.

Esme must not have wanted anything more than the platonic peace they already had. She did not want to be his lover, she wanted to be his closest friend. And while this should have been wonderful, Carlisle could not help but feel a raging stream of disappointment in his hollow heart. He felt like a fool for even thinking that she would want him in that way.

_Dear God, how could he have dared to hope for more than this? _

"Carlisle?" she tried calling him back to earth. "What is it?"

His eyes finally focused enough to see that her face was strewn with worry, her eyes searching his frantically as if she had done something wrong.

"It's nothing," he choked out, making a feeble attempt to dismiss his strange behavior. "I'm... It's...nothing."

He turned his head down in grief as the familiar wish to crumble into snow crossed his mind. The moment would have been so perfect; he could have given her something _more. _But she _hadn't wanted _more than this. If she had, she wouldn't have been so _bloody content _when her lips left his cheek.

His heart gave a bittersweet twist as Esme took hold of his hand – something she normally would have been hesitant to do. But not tonight.

He could not deny her eye contact in a moment so poignant. Everything in her eyes was true and gracious and honest. Everything about her was pure and good. He even dared to think that she knew why her kiss had saddened him, but how could she when he was hardly sure of the reason himself?

Carlisle stared at his hand where it lay despondently in Esme's palm. Nothing felt more like home than being enveloped in her rose-petal skin. He was overcome by self-pity at the sight of his strong, broad hand resting helplessly in her small, delicate one. It should have been the other way around. It made him want to cry.

It would have felt so wonderful to sob on her shoulder.

"Come here," he stuttered in an unrecognizable voice. He did not wait for her to give her consent before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. She came into his arms willingly, offering him strength from her caring embrace.

The fireworks looked so blissful in the sky. He wished he could be like them - bright and bold and unafraid to explode from passion. Esme was well on her way to becoming like that, and he desperately wanted to follow her.

He could still feel her kiss, warm and heavy on his cheek. He wanted to reach up and touch the space with his fingers, with all the wonder of a child.

It made him feel horrible that all he could do was wish and hope. Meanwhile Esme was already taking her first steps into becoming a new woman. She was growing braver and more confident every day. All Carlisle had wanted was to watch her grow and blossom from the very beginning. But now that it was happening, he felt left behind. He had not expected to feel so weak in comparison to her when it came to sharing emotions, acting on feelings, making things _happen._

The only way to comfort his agony, he felt, was to apologize. It was sadly all he had left.

"I'm sorry for...reacting that way." He cringed at what he perceived to be a pathetic apology, but Esme, in all her divine goodness, never failed to hear sincerity in another's words.

"I know why you did," she whispered as her hand settled over his heart.

He took a long breath of frigid air into his lungs, tightening his grasp on her hand as a beautiful cleansing sensation took hold of his body.

The sheer relief he felt allowed him to confide in her. "I've spent ages without being touched this way by another person."

"You don't need to be ashamed for it, Carlisle," Esme assured, nudging her head into his shoulder. "You know I will understand."

"I know that." He stared out at the shimmering clusters of fireworks, shaking his head in bewilderment. "I just...didn't expect to be so affected by it."

Esme was quiet for a long time after this. Perhaps he should have been worried by her silence – at any other time he would have been – but right now nothing could shake his trust in her. It felt surprisingly wonderful to lay the contents of his heart before _her _for a change. It reminded him of all the ways Esme _could _take care of him. She was capable of caring for him in the same way she could care for a child of her own. She could understand him and comfort him when he was too ashamed to name his feelings for himself.

If they would not share more than the occasional kiss on the cheek, he could live with that. It was worth it to have such an amazing woman in his life.

His reverie simmered away as he felt her small hand tugging urgently on his coat. "Did you see that poor firework?" Esme was asking him. "It went up, but it never burst. We never got to see what color it was."

He surprised himself in finding he was able to produce a smile. It astonished him that no matter how serious their conversations became, Esme always managed to find an almost childlike wonder in the simplest things. She wanted to share every last detail with him – every little thing that bothered her, every oddity she noticed, every mystery she wanted to solve – no matter how silly.

And God, how he loved her for this.

No matter how lost and lonely he felt, he could never resist indulging her in that wonder.

"You know, I've heard it said that when that happens, you ought to make a wish and it might come true," he whispered mystically as he gently pulled her closer.

"Do you really believe that?" He could hear the smile in her voice, and it restored warmth to every inch of him, inside and out.

"I don't know. I've never made a wish on a firework before," he admitted, chuckling when he felt her tremble with giggles beneath his arm.

He knew that the very next firework to burst would be lucky enough to inspire Esme's wish.

"I just wished for something, Carlisle," she informed him, tugging lightly on his scarf.

"Will you tell me?" he whispered, burying his chin in her hair.

"I wished that this year will be much brighter than the last."

He smiled to himself as the red and gold fireworks exploded in harmony above them.

"I have a feeling your wish will come true."

Carlisle never told Esme that he had made the same wish.


	28. A Dungeon with Velvet Curtains

**A Dungeon with Velvet Curtains**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 49: Where Art Thou Going?" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

He wrote a love letter to her that morning.

_Dear Esme, _

_I stole a ribbon from your room last evening. I keep it in my pocket so that when I must leave the house, I take a piece of you with me. You do not know how much strength it has given me, that simple sliver of lavender silk. I rub it between my fingers when the occasion arises, and my mind is filled with thoughts of your endearing innocence, your sweet smile. If you are missing your ribbon, my darling, please come and retrieve it. Do not be shy to slip your hand into my pocket and claim the ribbon as your own . . ._

He ran out of ink just as he neared the end, so he opened his drawer and pulled out his pheasant quill and ink well. He flexed his fingers and scribbled a few lines of ink on the top of a fresh page, reacquainting his hand with the ancient writing tool.

Then he began again.

_Sweet Esme, _

_I have a fantasy about you, my darling. It is one I visit often in my mind. I am walking at your side through the forest _– _it is springtime. We approach a small green pond full of lilies; the water is gelatin thick, with emerald growths of algae and flora sprawling across its still surface. It is so covered it seems possible to walk upon, and taking your hand, I encourage you to do so. You trust me. Your hand stays within mine as you take your first step _– _your foot fits perfectly on the lily pad. You catch your balance and soon you are tip-toeing like a brilliant ballerina across this pond. The spring sunlight dances on your hair, illuminating your skin. Your eyes are pleasant, without a worry in them. You wear a dress of white lace that sits several inches higher above your knees than propriety favors. I love when I can look at your knees. There is something about them that entreats me to smile, and I have never understood why. _

_I don't mind that there are so many things about you that confuse and confound me. You may walk upon lily ponds in my dreams and be entirely at peace with me as your guide and lover. You look so happy here in my imagination, Esme. So filled with joy and mirth, so carefree and joyous. . ._

_Of all the dreams I've had of you, this is the most chaste. _

There he stopped, too ashamed to sign it with his name. He folded it into thirds, then tucked it into a green envelope which he left unmarked. He let the envelope hover above the fire for a moment, then his heart forced him to place it safely in his jacket pocket.

He dipped his quill into a different shade of ink and began yet another letter.

As he wrote this one, he leaned so close to the paper that his lips nearly kissed it. He was intense while he wrote it, his hand shaking in passion and frustration.

_Esme, my love, _

_I wonder sometimes how warm and soft you would feel beneath my caresses. I long to see you laid bare on my bed, your skin as pure as winter snow, your eyes as deep as an ocean of wine. I cannot escape from these things I feel for you. My love for you is not like a sword, Esme. I cannot simply sheath it and worry not about its sharpness. Instead I must walk with it attached to my waist, no barrier to protect me from its threatening blade. I must always be mindful of its threat, for I am in constant danger of being stabbed. _

_I have always known that we would meet like this. I have known it, and I have craved it. Many nights I have dreamt of the pleasure that your body could bring to me, and the pleasure my own could bring to yours. I have so many times wondered what words you would whisper at crucial moments, flavoring them mentally in different honey-coated tones of your voice._

_I want to hear you speak my name _– _not as a polite request, or a friendly address, though these have sated me as much in the past. I want to hear your voice break like tinder crackles under a fire; I want to hear more than just the sound of my name on your lips; I want to listen to the way your breath changes with each syllable, and the way your tongue twists to form the sounds. We could invent our own language between the sheets, my love. We could discover an unheard range by our vocal symphony, we could challenge the volume of our whispers to sink softer, softer . . ._

_I would speak your name for each time you spoke mine. We would battle one another until our voices wore thin and our throats felt weak, and then we would speak with only our eyes _

The quill dropped from his fingers before he could even punctuate the final sentence.

He sobbed for a little while. Then he sat up straight and crushed the letter between his hands before hiding it in his drawer.

He could hear her all day long, down in the wine cellar where she was carving by herself. She seemed to want to be alone these days. He would often try to visit her when she was working only to feel a bit brushed aside by her aloofness.

For a while he could understand it. She wanted privacy, something that he had found just as essential to art. But her silence was beginning to disturb him, and he started to worry it had something to do with his reaction to her kiss.

Since last year's final night, they had not spent as much time in each other's presence. Where they once seemed to be facing forward together, they now were facing slightly different directions. Carlisle wasn't sure what he wanted, and he certainly wasn't sure what Esme wanted. He thought that the passing of time would help him eventually understand, but even weeks later he was not in a place that he wanted to be.

And clearly neither was she.

Still, he made sure to sneak downstairs to the cellar every morning before the sun rose. Before he left for the hospital, he lit every candle around her workspace, ensuring that it was ready and welcoming for her. He wanted Esme to enjoy herself, even if she grew frustrated with the process, even if it was more difficult than she had thought it was going to be. He wanted her to succeed.

The little scraping sounds she made drove him mad with... he couldn't quite place the name to the emotion he felt while listening to her carve. It was rather like listening to her paint. Each expressive stroke stirred something inside of him, something that couldn't be reached with a hand or seen with an eye. There was a part of his heart that reacted only to the sounds of Esme making art. It felt warm and content, yet tremulous and confused.

Before he could attempt to write about his feelings, Edward entered his study and placed a bundle of new mail on the corner of his desk. Carlisle thanked him, conveniently keeping his head down so that he would not have to explain himself to the skeptical look in Edward's eyes.

Edward left abruptly, understanding that his presence was not desired.

The sounds of Esme's carving drove Carlisle to the edge of his sanity, until he simply _had _to brave the cramp little cellar stairwell and visit her.

He approached the door quickly as soon as he had the urge to see her, fearing that he might suddenly change his mind and turn around as he done several times in the past week.

He went down those dusty wooden stairs two at a time until he was on the ground, staring at her from across the small room. She had her back to him, but he could see in her stance that she had been idle for a while.

"How are things coming along?" he carefully pried.

"Not as well as I'd hoped, I admit," she said. Her voice was quiet but clearly agitated.

"You've been down here since five o'clock," he pointed out. "Surely you must have made _some _progress."

As soon as the words left his mouth, he winced in regret. From the way her shoulders tightened and her head jerked to the side, he could tell that it was obviously the wrong thing to say.

"Oh, I have made progress all right," she said, her voice masked in slight sarcasm, "–progress that I've only just ruined with one stupid mistake."

He could see her arm shaking ever so slightly, and he approached with caution, hoping to find a way to calm her down before her temper might flare.

"Let me help."

Her head sagged a little as she said wearily, "You don't need to."

He perceived her to be a damsel in that moment, and all he wanted was to solve every problem that plagued her. He could feel his confidence egging him on, like a hungry ram charging from inside of his chest.

"I want to," he insisted. He blamed the ram that his voice was a little shaky.

Esme shook her head. "Carlisle, I really don't think it's possible to fix this."

Her voice was more hesitant this time. Thinking she only refused him because she did not wish to be a bother to him, he confidently came to stand behind her.

"Everything can be fixed."

With that, he slipped his arms around her and studied the wounded piece of wood with his fingers. A sizable piece had been taken out, and he could certainly understand her frustration with having made such a mistake, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed. As an experienced sculptor, he knew this.

His fingertips felt the rough edges of the wood and the gaping hole that had been left behind in her carving. He prolonged the examination for his own benefit, enjoying the comfort and control he felt at having her between his arms. She could not run away when she was here.

"I told you it couldn't be fixed," she mumbled beneath her breath.

"This is nothing, Esme. It's barely a scratch," he assured her, trying not to chuckle at her childish stubbornness. "We can chisel it down and make it good as new. I'll show you."

He brushed off the wood chips and scooped away the sawdust until the surface of the table was clean, then he picked up the bluntest chisel. With it, he scraped the wooden carving down to the bare beginnings of what it had started out as: an oddly shaped block of wood.

He felt a little guilty erasing all of her hard work, but she had to know there was no way to fix it without starting over. She had said herself, hadn't she?

Esme stood still between his arms the entire time, watching him as he chiseled smoothly away at her carving. He had forgotten how intimate her eyes could feel as they watched every move he made. The fact that she was physically trapped between his arms as he made a subtle show of his dexterity and strength made it all the sweeter.

But this time she did not seem to be watching him with admiration. This time her arms were crossed over her chest, and she stood rigid and silent. And though Carlisle longed to see the look on her face, he was afraid that it might be more discouraging than encouraging.

Nevertheless, he was determined to renew her vigor.

"Now we can start over," he proposed when his work was complete.

With every new stroke and technique he guided her through, he hoped that he was helping to fan the flames of her lost passion for her artwork. He touched her in so many beautiful ways; every time he touched one of her fingers, he was really bestowing upon it the will to learn. He was trying to resurrect the love and excitement she had shown when they had first begun carving together.

But apparently he had gone about it in all the wrong ways.

Esme sighed so forcefully, a few of the wood chips on the table scattered from the release of her breath.

"I did warn you it would not be easy," Carlisle said, struggling to hold onto his patience. He began to wonder if she was being difficult with him on purpose.

"I know. I just... I'm a little frustrated is all." She shrugged.

"Well, you should take a break for a while. You've been working for a long time." He tried to brighten the mood in the only way he knew how. Perhaps she was just feeling too stressed to create perfection in a little under a week. Perhaps all she needed was a break spent upstairs instead of being locked away in this tiny smoke-filled cellar.

"So much for making progress," she sighed glumly, sweeping aside all of her tools as if she were giving up.

Trying to ignore the pang in his heart, Carlisle quickly moved to stand at her side and began to clean the tools she had discarded. She did not look up at him, but he hoped that she would when he spoke. "For what it is worth, you've made plenty of progress. Carving is not something that you can learn overnight, Esme. Give it time. It will be a masterpiece in the end, I know it."

"You don't need to humor me."

He barely believed that he had heard her correctly, but before he could let the words sink in, he was already defending himself. "I'm not humoring—"

Her eyes shot up to him, boiling in deadly calmness like molten red rubies.

"Carlisle, please. I understand that you want to make me feel good about everything I'm doing, but honestly, I can't help but feel you're only patronizing me at this point."

Carlisle froze on the spot, feeling as if he were just trapped inside his worst nightmare. Esme could not be saying these things to him.

Her insufferable silence made the room seem hotter and the confusion in his chest burst until he could no longer hold it in.

"Patronizing? I would never dream of—Esme, anything I have said to you has been said with sincere purpose. I swear it!"

He could not have cared less if he came off as desperate. It was all he could do to keep himself from sobbing. She was misinterpreting everything he had done for her. He knew that her emotions were still dangerously fragile, but how could she fail to see that?

She wasn't hearing any of it. She turned away from him with a stubborn sigh and began to shove the carving tools into all the wrong cases. "That's just it. I know you. You don't even realize it."

In a final plea, he tried once more to get through to her.

"Esme, if I'd known you felt that way—"

"It isn't your fault. It's mine."

It was an excuse he often used for his own defense. Hearing it from her made his world feel as though it had been twisted inside out.

His chest seized with panic as she suddenly turned on her heel and headed for the staircase.

"Where art th—Where are you going?"

Always, in the worst moments, he lost control of his tongue. He hoped she hadn't caught it.

"Upstairs. To paint." Her back stiffened as she opened the door and the soft glow of a white winter afternoon lit a silvery halo around her beautiful body. "I might as well do something I'm good at for a while."

She shut the door behind her, letting a few rogue snowflakes gather on the last step before she disappeared. Her footsteps pounded all the way up to her room where another door slammed in an eerie echo that shook the whole house.

As Carlisle looked around, he realized he had been left in the same place he knew so well throughout the years. All alone in a tiny room, surrounded by candles and silent wooden sculptures. Without Esme, this room lost its life. The faces he had carved no longer seemed to be full of expression, their eyes no longer followed him adoringly around the room as they once did. The candles' dancing did not seem as lively without her.

Everything was...still. Cold. Lonely.

In a brief attack of frustration, Carlisle slammed his fist down on the table where Esme had shoved her tools aside. The force of the collision sent a few knives clanging onto the floor and a cloud of sawdust rising up to his face.

When the sandy dust cleared, he looked down to find Esme's ruined carving - the piece of art she had worked so hard to render, now looking like nothing more than what she had started out with.

Reliving the memory of when he had held her hand, Carlisle sadly tangled his own two hands together, weaving his fingers in between each other, wishing that half of them were small and slender. Holding his own hand never felt like such a sad gesture. A lump began to build in his throat, growing tighter the longer he stared at his joined hands, like the knot of a noose nearing the base of his neck.

He bit his lip and stood back, letting his hands fall limply apart to hang at his sides. The candles flickered on the table, tears of melted wax leaking down their long, waxen bodies. They seemed to be calling for his attention, splashing their light over the unfinished carving on the table.

It was tempting. So tempting.

His hands all but shook with the need to complete it. The noose around his neck loosened a little as he entertained the thousands of wonderful and dangerous ways Esme could react...

Before he could change his mind, Carlisle stepped up to the table and picked up the nearest chisel.

******-}0{-**

Always, it seemed, they were making art together. Whether it was through painting or speaking or carving. Carlisle's heart could not help but wonder if he and Esme were meant to make art in so many more ways.

It could not have been stopped. His hands had been magnetically drawn to the block of wood. It had looked so empty, so lonely. He had to make it come to life.

Just as Esme's hands had done, Carlisle's hands repeated the same steps, one by one. His fingers touched the same places; his eyes watched the same movements. He was meticulous and kind, and caring and deep. He had never remembered the carving process being so hypnotizing before. It seemed to end as soon it had begun. It was as if he had been in a trance, lost inside of the art itself, becoming a part of it before it was even created.

He was seeing through Esme's mind, becoming an integral part of her vision. He was repeating her thoughts, remembering everything she had ever said about art and about her wishes and plans for this specific piece. He saw flashes of their hands, gripping each other tightly in the light of the candles. He saw her face, her beautiful eyes scrunched in concentration as she leaned over the table and worked while he watched in secret. He saw the lines he had written in his notebook while she had been carving in the same room as him. He relived the moments they had spent together, and his hands grew stronger with every thought that passed through his mind.

Like a man who had taken too much wine, Carlisle lifted himself out of the artistic stupor with a renewed mind. His heart was full of energy, thriving on the high of having taken nothing and created _something_. Yet his arms and hands and fingers were wonderfully exhausted. He had never felt more worthy in his life. He had never felt more purpose coming from his own two hands. It was if he _had _saved a life on this table. Just like coming out of a vigorous and challenging surgery, Carlisle emerged from the carving cellar with his heart on fire and his hands burning hot from the work they had done.

He could not take it back now. What was done was irreversible. He had finished Esme's art.

Whether it had been done out of revenge or spite or pride or anger or lust or frustration or pure love, he did not know. It may have been a twisted combination of all of these. It did not matter now.

It was done.

He ignored the chatter of Edward and Esme in the parlor, instead shutting himself into his study, his own personal dungeon with velvet curtains.

He collapsed into his chair, feeling as if he had bruises all over his forearms and in his palms. It made no sense for his immortal body to be feeling such pains and aches and strains, but he was too consumed by his feelings to find it strange. Everything emotional was making itself known by physical means. His head throbbed and his lungs were gasping for air, and his eyes were closing as if he desperately needed to sleep.

He had never felt this strange since the day he had been changed. It was only more incredible proof of the power Esme had over him. She could destroy him just as easily with her own tongue as she could destroy a piece of wood with a chisel.

Even now her words still stung the back of his heart. He had never felt more sensitive to the words of a woman. Yet Esme, even in her anger, had been the most attractive, most compelling, most frustrating creature he had ever laid eyes on. And all he wanted was to pick her apart and solve her, scrape her down to the bare bones and rebuild her from scratch, just as he had with her cursed wooden carving.

Desperate for any kind of distraction, Carlisle flung his hand out to snatch the stack of mail Edward had left on the corner of his desk.

He flipped idly through the envelopes from the church and the hospital until he reached the one return address that stood out from all the others.

It was an alias address, of course. _Vienna, Austria._ Written in that dirty golden ink that smelled of unkempt European city streets. They wouldn't dare show their seal on the envelope itself, but he knew it would be the first thing he saw when he opened it.

Carlisle bluntly tore open the envelope, ignored the familiar seal of the Volturi, and spread the letter out on the desk.

_My dearest friend, _

_I apologize that it has taken so long for you to receive my response to your last letter. Things have been, shall we say, complicated for the past few months in Volterra. I'm sure your life is nowhere near tranquil either, however I trust that you have been waiting on this letter for some time, and so I shall spare you the useless prattle and dive straight into the subject we both surely want to discuss._

_My good friend, I could not contain my delight upon hearing that you are with amiable company! Yours has always been the most gentle soul I have known, yet I must admit my surprise when I learned you were able to resist the temptation that burdens us all when we welcome one of our kind into the world. I have no doubts that you have created a wonderful companion for yourself. (You see! Your venom does wonders just as the rest of ours! To think how insecure you were about your abilities in your younger days...) Ah, justice clearly serves the well-deserving, all in due time. _

_I extend to you a most generous invitation in hoping that you will bring your newest friend to visit us in the springtime. Surely you remember how much you adored the gardens at the Villa Borghese and the sunrise over the Tevere! Think how enchanted young Edward (a fine name!) will be to see the things you saw, to walk the streets you walked so many years ago! _

_I speak for all of us when I say that our excitement is abundant. We look forward to seeing you both within the next year, your profession allowing. _

_Arriverderci!_

_Yours in the highest regards, _

_Aro _

A wildfire of outrage wrenched through Carlisle's chest as he spared the familiar insignia a fleeting glance. Every unnecessary exclamation mark, every hollow loop in the calligraphic hand; he could just hear the presumptuous and pompous tone of Aro's voice ringing in his ears as he read the written words.

The soft chatter from the next room over had ceased before he finished reading the letter. Carlisle stood up, held the piece of willowy paper tightly in his hand and rushed from his study to where Esme was.

He followed her scent and the aroma of a burning fire to the parlor, struck the door open with his free hand and charged for the open fireplace.

He wanted Esme to see his rage, wanted to inflict that on her in some small way. Whether it was out of his own anger or spite towards the way she had dismissed him, he did not know. Everything was a blur as he stood before the fireplace with his hands ripping the letter to shreds. Into the flames he tossed the pieces, watching with satisfaction as they burned into ashes.

"What is it?" she asked. She sounded hesitant. It made him feel powerful.

"The Volturi. Again."

"What do they want?" She sounded worried. It made him feel confident.

"Me," he answered darkly, knowing it would have a more potent impact on her. "And they're curious about Edward."

He felt a rush of redemption wash through him as the tables were turned ever so discreetly. Here, Esme was helpless one; Esme was the one in the dark. He should not have enjoyed that, even if his enjoyment was slight. But he did.

"How do they know about him?" she asked, her voice threatening in its boldness.

"I've revealed in my letters to Aro that I'd found a companion," Carlisle said wearily. "I thought it would stop them from asking me to join them if they knew I had company here."

"Do they know about _me_?"

The sheer fear evident in Esme's voice brought him back to reality, but only briefly.

"No," he said sharply, taking sick pleasure in watching the letter crumble into black and orange ash inside the fireplace. "And I won't be telling them either."

Behind him, Esme scoffed.

"For Heaven's sake, Carlisle. Their letters must not be very polite for you to become so hassled over them."

There it was again. That clipped, curt tone she used with him whenever she thought he was exaggerating the severity of the situation. If she could be angry with him, then he had every right to be at least a little angry with her... Hadn't he?

He laughed lightly at her misunderstanding. He realized how impolite it must have sounded, but he did not care. There was something so invigorating about letting his walls down around her, even if it meant she would dislike what she saw.

"You don't understand Esme; the only reason they want Edward and me is out of their own fear," he tried to explain. "They fear me being out in the world this way. They fear that my lifestyle will spread." He held tightly to the mantel as he spoke, feeling as if he were truly holding to the edge of a cliff.

"That's nothing to fear at all!" Esme retaliated.

"For them it is!" he argued. "They cannot have vampires like me, waltzing around in all parts of the world, pretending to be human. It puts our kind at risk, and I am not denying that. It does put us at risk." He closed his eyes briefly as the fingertips of shame tapped on his shoulder. "Every day I show my face at the hospital I put us at risk."

Though she was silent, he could almost hear her piecing together all that he had told her in her mind.

"Then the Volturi want you to join them so that they can...convert you," she said at last, her voice uncertain but grave.

A cold, heavy feeling settled inside his chest, as if hundreds of tiny icicles were forming in the space between his lungs. "For decades they've been trying."

"So send them a letter back!" she shouted, her voice shrill and beautiful and infuriating as she ordered him about. "Tell them to hell with it!"

Though part of Carlisle was thrilled with Esme for her passionate outrage, the greater part of him was still overwhelmed that his power was being challenged by a normally meek woman.

"I've sent _letters_, Esme," he said with a dim chuckle, thinking she would likely fall over if he told her the precise number he had sent over the years. "Every time I've written them, I've declined Aro's offers. But it is impossible to reason with Aro once he has his mind set on something." Carlisle looked into the blazing fire as if he were peering into the eyes of a lover who had betrayed him. "I do not believe Aro is an _evil _man by any means, but his lust for power keeps him from sympathizing with anyone but himself."

Something shifted in the room; hot and cold blended together to become lukewarm, and for a second or two, he almost felt that things were calming.

But he thought too soon.

"I understand that, Carlisle," Esme emphasized, her voice struggling to sound patient, "but that doesn't give you any reason to be so _angry_ about it."

Carlisle felt the very anger she spoke of flash at her words. It was such a foreign feeling, having his anger directed at Esme. But in the moment her perceived power was threatening to him, and he had to do what he needed to defend himself.

"Forgive me for what I am about to say, Esme, but I do not believe you _do _understand this. My situation is far more complicated than what you believe it to be. You have no idea how deep this goes."

Her eyes went round and bright, the way they did whenever he told her something shocking. They were beautiful, but when the sparkle in them came from anger and not from wonder, they could be deliciously frightening.

"Well, you could _tell _me what's really bothering you so much, and maybe _then_ I could help you."

This was exactly what he had feared. Every point Esme had made so far had been perfectly valid, inexcusably _right_ and appropriate. Now, he was the villain. He was the selfish, ignorant fool who turned away good help when it was offered. But he could not be responsible for letting Esme become involved with the Volturi. He would not be able to withstand having that weight on his shoulders for the rest of their days together. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. She just did not understand.

"I know you're trying to offer your aid in good respect, Esme, but I cannot accept it. Not for this." He pushed his hair back and shook his head repeatedly, trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her. "It's...it's simply too much to explain to you."

Oh, Lord. Her _face. _He couldn't keep this aloof facade up for much longer knowing his every word was putting a fresh hole in her heart. He had not meant to make her sound like a burden, but too late he realized that was exactly what he had done.

"I didn't mean it like that—" He tried fruitlessly to redeem himself before she could slam another door, but he was not fast enough.

"No," she snapped, her face exquisitely striking in her dangerous mood. "You don't have to justify anything. You've made yourself perfectly clear. You don't need any help from me," she said haltingly, each sentence puncturing his soul until he could feel the contents bleeding out from within.

He turned his palm out in a pitiful offering of apology, but she didn't even see it.

Before he knew it, she was heading out the door. "Excuse me."

Her last words stripped him of his pride, leaving him bare and broken in the room as her presence quickly faded.

She had no idea how dangerous it was for her to leave him behind. Any form of abandonment, no matter how insignificant, could be fatally damaging to his heart. His sadness turned to panic, and panic turned to rage. Rage was a deadly emotion for any vampire, especially when that vampire was standing too close to the fire.

Those sizzling little embers at the bottom of the fireplace were looking all too appealing.

To save himself from doing something brash, Carlisle fled from the room and then from the house. He'd only meant to run to the edge of the property, but somehow he found himself at the edge of a short cliff in the middle of the forest instead.

He knew he was not alone.

Without even turning around, Carlisle spoke to the silence with his thoughts.

_For God's sake, Edward, don't even say it. I know there's no taking it back now. I did the wrong thing, yet again. _

From the shadows beside him, the boy's familiar face was revealed. He stepped forward and stared at his father with wise eyes and a solemn face.

"No, Carlisle," he said smoothly, and for once his tone was not demeaning as he said it. "I believe you did the _right _thing."

**A/N:**

**So here, Carlisle needed Edward to tell him that it's okay to let his anger spill sometimes. It's okay to show the rage when he feels it building. Carlisle still clings to the idea that he must be perfect all the time or he will be unworthy of Esme's respect and love, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Now he only needs to confront Esme with his true emotions, and he will earn back her respect. **


	29. Of Roses and Baby's Breath

**Of Roses and Baby's Breath**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 50: Unlikely Valentine" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

Each day that passed when Esme did not speak to him made Carlisle feel gravely ill. He was like a child in dire need of medicine who was instead neglected by his caregivers. He could sneak about the house as often as he wanted in search of the cure, but in his heart he knew the only cure for his depression would come from Esme herself.

The days were dull without her sweet laughter to fill them. Carlisle found that he had very little to write about in his journal when he was not spending time with Esme. On every page he wrote about his daily activities, but there was nothing of interest in his written words. They were, he thought, like faint chalk tally marks on a cold stone wall. All the same, monotonous and bland.

And still, Esme would not speak to him.

He did not fear for her contentment, for she was clearly content. The extent of her disappointment in him was still unclear, yet she seemed to be getting along just fine with Edward.

It almost made Carlisle hurt more to see her happiness when she was in the company of another. He had no logical reasons to be jealous of Edward, but anyone who could make Esme laugh immediately became the target of Carlisle's rare but exceptionally strong envy.

He spoke to Edward about it – a few rough whispers during a night's hunt. After talking more honestly with the boy, he buried his concerns in the snow and returned to the house well fed and hopeful. But Esme was always too busy to notice that he was practically waiting on her to come talk with him.

She cleaned the corners and painted the ballroom and chatted with Edward, acting as if nothing during the past few days had ever gone sour.

Instead of letting his frustration force him into approaching her brashly, Carlisle settled himself to wait for her until she showed that she was ready.

It was a subtle tip from Edward that gave Carlisle his last boost of confidence.

Both he and Esme had regrets that needed to be resolved. Problems between two people were not like salt; they would not simply dissolve in water with a good, long wait. Yet stirring them about would not help them to vanish more quickly. It was imperative that they take the opposite approach.

However ashamed he felt to be calling for her, he could not bear to wait another day. No matter how he said her name, it always came out sounding too soft on his tongue.

"Esme," he called once, and that was all.

He waited with bated breath for her to show her face at the door to his study. Each of her footsteps coming closer lightened the shadows in his heart until she was at last standing where she belonged.

He ducked his head slightly when he saw her lingering by the door. He had been able to make no progress with his surgical preparations, the evidence of which was quite plain having been laid out all across his desk. Every time he felt her movements in the house it had caused his hand to slip from the distraction. He was lucky that Esme did not work at the hospital with him, or else patients would be dying left and right on his operating table.

He smiled at her beauty and beckoned her inside without a word. He honestly could think of nothing appropriate to say.

Thankfully, Esme was not a woman of excessive words.

He was able to easily segue into her scheduled blood training, testing her with vials of the sweetest blood samples he could collect. She passed every test he issued, and though he had grown used to seeing her success, he still felt a ray of bright pride fill the room every time she succeeded.

She had come so far from where she had first started out. When Carlisle thought back to the times she was afraid to even look at the vial filled with blood, it was never more clear to him just how much perseverance and strong will Esme had when it came to pleasing him.

It was a shame that she was being so quiet. He had the distinct feeling that if they were not on such poor speaking terms at the present time, she would have been bouncing off the walls of his study with joy at her perfect performance.

It was almost worse that he could see that familiar glint of glee in her eyes every time she resisted the blood. She sat in the chair with her hands folded on her lap and her ankles crossed, never making a peep. His heart sunk steadily with each passing second that she did not vocally express her excitement. She instead remained perfectly calm, containing her characteristic bursts of joy that he so loved about her. He desperately wished she would share that joy with him now.

Hopefully the scheme he was slowly hatching in the back of his mind would help with that.

After her final, successful trial, Carlisle stood up and walked to the cabinet behind his desk. "I recall once, that you asked for a present after we had finished a successful test."

The familiar fragrance of sea water greeted him as he opened the hidden box inside the dark cabinet. He could not help but smile when his eyes took in his old collection of seashells, imagining how Esme would react when he showed it to her.

"Carlisle..." Her tone was full of warning when she sighed his name, but this only encouraged him.

Turning around, he crouched beside her chair and set the open box of seashells on his knee for her to peer inside.

Her eyes flickered over the impressive display for at least thirty seconds, a look of innocent awe on her lovely face. He watched her with even thirstier eyes, confounded that even after he could predict her every reaction, he still became speechless with amazement when it came.

"Pick one?" Her voice was almost inaudible, as if it were presumptuous to ask.

He smirked reassuringly, nudging the box closer to her. "Or two, or three..."

She bit her lip in uncertainty, and he could have sworn he saw a faint pink hue creep across her cheeks. But of course this was only his foolish imagination.

Inside her eyes he could see the thoughts reflecting back at him, like fireflies flitting over the surface of a lake. She considered each shell in its own individual glory, not passing up a single one because she knew that each one was special in its own way. Each had a story to tell, and although he was the only one who knew those shells personally, Carlisle almost wondered if Esme had the secret power to read the origins of each just by looking at them. Her gaze was so frustratingly intimate, even when she was just staring at seashells.

His reverie faded into smoke as he watched her fingers carefully pry a hidden shell from the bottom of the box. He recognized it immediately when she brought it into the light.

That's a conch shell from the Indian Ocean," he said softly. "It has always been one of my favorites because of this..." He helped her turn it over so that she could see the piercing purple designs on its smooth underbelly. He traced the lines lovingly out of habit, wondering vaguely if it seemed odd to Esme that he would touch a seashell with such reverence. Years of loneliness had taught Carlisle that all things of this earth, whether they were living or not, deserved a reverent touch.

"Do you have a favorite?" Esme suddenly asked, pulling him from yet another pensive tangent.

"Well, yes." Carlisle blanched inwardly, a little embarrassed when he thought of the one shell that he treasured above all the others. He forced his fingers to extract it from the corner of the box, hoping some justification would keep Esme from thinking his choice was strange. "This one – it was the first one I found – from England," he explained, laying the small, simple white shell in his open hand so he could point out its defining features. "I always called it 'angel wings' because it has these strange bits sprouting back here that look like wings."

He watched her laugh lightly in amusement, tilting her head so she could better see the shell's resemblance to wings. She looked up to find him staring at her, and something in her face changed.

A wickedly romantic impulse flooded him as their eyes locked awkwardly, and before he knew it, he had reached forward, taken her hand in his, and pressed the tiny white seashell into Esme's palm. A zing of pleasant warmth shot through his wrist when he felt the shell mold perfectly to her hand, as if it were meant to be there all along.

Instantly, she began to refuse the gift. "What? Oh, no...no. Carlisle, I can't take this one from you—it's too precious—it wouldn't be appropriate..."

Her stuttering was endearing.

He only slowly shook his head at her, his tranquility helping her calm down from her flustered panic. He bent her fingers down gently and tucked her hand between his, trapping the shell inside her hand so that she could not let go of it no matter how much she struggled.

"I wouldn't have a collection at all if it weren't for this shell," he said, pausing to renew his weakened voice. "And I wouldn't have a family if it weren't for you. I think it is more than appropriate that you keep this shell."

He reluctantly released her hand when he felt her fidgeting cease. Esme looked inexplicably sad as she stared down at her gift, and Carlisle knew that look of beautiful sadness was all because of what he had done for her. The thought filled him with the fantastically strange urge to lean down and kiss the pout straight from her lips.

"You've given me too much," she whispered, the melancholy strain in her voice too much for his heart to bear.

He let the lid on his wooden seashell box close before he stood up.

"I can never give you enough," he assured, and as his lips lingered by her forehead, he felt as if he were leaning too close to a flickering candle flame. Only an inch further and he could have kissed her skin... But that would have burned him. "And now I wish to apologize to you for the other day—"

She sighed heavily. "You don't need to do that, Carlisle."

He turned around to tuck the box back into the cabinet, some part of him wishing he could crawl inside along with it and hide from what had to be said. "Yes. I do," he sighed in icy regret. "It wasn't right of me to send you away like that when you were only trying to help me."

"I sent myself away," she argued. In a fragrant flash she was beside him in front of the window.

"Because of the way I treated you...which was unacceptable," he emphasized the words with shame, forcing himself to meet her gaze. Her face was intimidatingly beautiful in the dark light filtering through the window. "I promise never to behave that way again."

He watched curiously as her eyes fluttered away from his, and her throat tightened when she swallowed. "I never meant to be pressuring to you," she said quietly. "But if there is any way I can help you, I want to know about it. I want you to know that you can come to me when you need me." Her lungs heaved a great breath and she turned her head up to meet his eyes again. "You don't have to pretend that your problems are nonexistent just to protect me. I want to know everything, Carlisle – even the things that aren't so pleasant."

Her strength of will both surprised and pleased him, but what she spoke of intimidated him. "As a part of my family, you deserve that, Esme... But maybe it is still too soon for you to be concerned over these matters."

Her breath touched his arm when she sighed, and it filled him with a comfortable warmth that stretched languidly all across his torso. "If you keep protecting me from what is happening in the real world then it will always be 'too soon' for me, Carlisle."

The wisdom of her words struck him, suddenly brewing within him mixed feelings of pride and dread. He realized at once that if he continued to keep her in the dark, it would be his fault if Esme remained fearful of the world around her. He had to find a balance between offering her reasonable protection and allowing her to take necessary risks when the moment was right.

"You're right," he whispered, eyes moving bravely back to her face, afraid for what he was about to offer. "You want the truth of the matter, then?"

"Yes," she said immediately, her eyes fierce. "Every detail."

The breeze of her approach enveloped him in her sweet scent, and his tense heart was loosened with a calming sense of complete trust. He spared himself from having to look her in the eye as he shared with her the full and honest truth.

"I've made the mistake of promising Aro I would return to Volterra one day. He's under the impression that I will be bringing Edward along with me." A prickle of turmoil itched in his chest. "I never told the Volturi about you, and I don't want them to know you exist... and so I've been trying to find an excuse not to go."

Worried of her reaction, he still refused to look at her, instead investing the strength of his fingers into a nervous little dance with the lock on his seashell case.

"Why don't you want the Volturi to know about me?" Her voice was gentle but laced quite neatly with suspicion. He flinched.

"It would only complicate things," he sighed, shaking his head. "They would ask me questions about you; they would make presumptions about you. They would likely want to meet you."

An aura of coldness swept through the room as he imagined a most disturbing scene of Esme, fresh out of her newborn year, approaching the trio of thrones in the hall of the Volturi. Shadows embraced her small figure as the cloaked men and women of his past surrounded her, demeaning her with their critical eyes. His sweet, sensitive Esme had no place whatsoever amongst the Volturi.

"Would it really be so terrible if we visited Volterra someday?" Esme asked, inflecting the very image he had just watched inside his mind.

Carlisle shuddered inwardly and sought comfort in the window beside him, his eyes searching the horizon for the first soothing waves of morning sunlight.

"Honestly... I just don't want to go back there," he murmured, his voice resembling one of a man who had not slept in ages. "The memories hurt. I don't want to relive the things I've seen there. I know things wouldn't be the same now, but I have no immediate desire to see them again, and I don't think I will any time soon."

It felt somewhat strange to be speaking so intimately with Esme. These were the kinds of words he reserved for the unbiased pages of his journal. But sharing his fears and concerns with her was not as frightening as he had once thought it would be. In fact, he now almost preferred her conference to the empty page.

"I can understand that," she said softly. The word 'understand' positively glowed when Esme said it. To be understood was such a welcome feeling for Carlisle. "I couldn't see myself wanting to return to my home in Ohio," she continued thoughtfully. "I think it would be too painful for me, too."

Carlisle moved his hand slowly over the window sill, feeling the rough effects of the wood grain on his flesh. He wished he could fill the silence somehow, but he was at a loss for what to say. Esme seemed to have said everything already.

He swallowed deeply and turned to see her expression. To his pleasant surprise, she was smiling.

"Doesn't it feel better to talk about these things?" she asked.

Much to his regret, Carlisle still found that he could not bring words forth. All he could do was nod. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly in concern.

"I'm sorry if I seemed like I was prying, Carlisle," she apologized bluntly. "But you worried me that day when you burned those letters. You seemed so...irrationally angry."

His jaw tightened at the memory of how he had behaved, a memory he preferred to never think on again. "I overreacted. You were right to be concerned for me. But it wasn't just about the Volturi, Esme. It was... a great many things."

Such an understatement encompassed the daunting invitations from the Volturi, the pressure to perform a complicated surgery on his next shift at the hospital, and most of all the distracting attraction he felt towards the woman standing directly across from him.

"Anything I can help you with?" she asked innocently.

The most tragic part was that she could help him. She was the only one who could bring him the relief he lusted after for so long. But he could not put Esme at risk no matter how terrible his need had grown. He did not deserve that kind of help, nor did he expect to ever receive it.

"I'm afraid not," he whispered, forcing a small smile onto his face. "But thank you for listening to me. I forgot how much I needed this."

Taking Esme's hand had become a natural gesture for his body to perform when he was in need of comfort. He hardly realized that he had grasped her hand in his until moments after it had already happened. When he looked down, her fingers were all tightly wrapped up within his own.

She sighed, and he could feel the strain of that sigh reach him all the way through her fingertips. "I just wish we could clean up this mess with the Volturi somehow," she said, suddenly several inches closer to him than she was before.

He felt the cool, silky touch of her hair on the skin of his wrist, then the soft puff of her breath on his shirt. A welcoming fire lit within his chest, as if the blazing heat inside of him would encourage her to step even closer.

It was all he could do to offer her comfort after she had so generously offered it to him. "We'll figure things out," he murmured reassuringly. She stared up at him with her gem-like eyes, so wide and trusting that the sight all but caused his heart to burst. "It will all turn out in the end."

She smiled awkwardly in reply, her lip naturally curving into that familiar lopsided angle he found so tragically endearing. He wanted to kiss that very curve where her lip receded into her cheek. He wanted to touch the tip of his curious tongue to the very place where a dimple would appear if only she would smile just a tad bit wider...

He had not realized that the tip of his tongue crept halfway through his lips at the thought. A burst of mortified energy seized his body, but it quickly faded when he noticed that Esme's eyes were not on his face.

Her eyes were on their hands.

Another burst of energy filled him, this time gentler – less mortified and more pleased. He dared to hold her small hand slightly tighter, until he could feel the pressure beating like a tiny pulse between his fingers.

"Carlisle." The instant she spoke his name, his grip let up. She then looked straight into his eyes and whispered two words: "My carving..."

And he just nearly kept himself from falling on his knees.

"Oh, forgive me, Esme! I couldn't bear to see you give up, so I thought that if I—"

His words had come out in a messy, embarrassing rush, but with the swift touch of two slender fingers on his lips, she silenced him. Her face was bright with an adoring smile, and her eyes were sparkling with tenderly amused pity.

"I only wanted to thank you," she whispered, with a sureness that cooled the hot wires of worry tangling in his chest. Where her fingertips still lingered on his lips, he could not help but press ever so lightly against them, aching to taste their sweetness before they retreated.

Her fingers finally parted from his lips, unaware of his secret kiss, and he was left with nothing but the bittersweet echo of their softness. Where they had once touched him now burned as if she had smeared molten metal across his lips. All over his body, he felt fantastically fragile, like a willow branch that sways helplessly in the wind.

He heard the wind calling to him softly, speaking in a voice very similar to Esme's.

"Carlisle, you know that it is my own fault that this happened," she was saying. His heart had been listening all along, even if his mind wandered elsewhere. "If I hadn't turned you away from me that morning when you tried to help me with the carving, we wouldn't have been so quick to turn against each other."

She stared at him, her precious eyes heavy with regret. And as much as he hated to see Esme in distress, a part of Carlisle took comfort in her perceived guilt. Perhaps he could accept for once that the fault was not entirely his own; that Esme, as perfect as she was in his eyes, was flawed enough to have disrupted their relationship with one another in a brief moment of selfishness.

Be that as it may, he only adored her all the more now that she was taking the fault upon herself.

"That was all I wanted, Esme," he said, his words broken by a feeble fervor. "To help you. I meant nothing more by it." He saw her eyes flash with pity again, and it made him feel especially weak. But he didn't mind feeling weak with Esme this close. He attempted a half-smile, but came up with nothing more than the shadow of a wince. "Is it not ironic that we both refused each other when we only wanted to offer help?"

A little choking sound came from her throat as she moved forward to grasp either side of his face in her hands. "I know, I know..." she chanted apologetically, her hold tightening by the second. "Oh, Carlisle... I was frustrated. I wasn't thinking. I so wish I could take back everything I said."

Her words sunk into him, warming him from the inside out with her fiery honesty. He felt the same tender warmth from her palms where they pressed against his cheeks, soft and yielding against the hard angles of his face.

If heaven truly had a place on earth, he was convinced it would be between both of Esme's hands.

"Do not wish for that," he said back to her in a muffled whisper, afraid that moving his lips too much might cause her hands to slip away. "The words you have spoken may have been spoken in anger, but they were honest words, Esme."

Her thick lashes covered her eyes with shame, and his heart tore in two. "I hope that you will always have the courage to be honest with me," he said quietly, "even if it may hurt one or both of us. Do you understand?"

Her eyes slowly raised to meet his again, stronger this time.

"Yes. I understand. But this is one problem that you cannot blame yourself for, Carlisle." Her strength wavered a bit before she murmured, "You must forgive me."

He stared at her so deeply he nearly felt the earth tremble upon its axis. He was in danger of losing his balance and falling straight through her gaze into her soul. And everything he loved about her was wrapping slowly around him like a thick ribbon of warmth and love and trust.

"Forgive me," she repeated, speaking the words more with her eyes than her voice.

His aching fingers reached out and gently grazed the soft curve of her cheek. With all his sincerity, he whispered back, "I forgive you."

They sealed their renewed harmony with a wonderfully lingering embrace, and all was well again.

******-}0{-**

Carlisle despised the very thought that he could ever grow to dread coming to the hospital, but recently he worried that this was precisely the curse he had somehow fallen under.

When things were not pleasant at home, work was an escape. For years he had looked forward to working, if only to spare him the unbearable isolation he felt while trapped inside his house alone. Even when it was only he and Edward, Carlisle still felt the company of other humans was an irreplaceable necessity in his life.

It wasn't that he did not desire the company of other people still, but rather that Esme's company was favorable to all of them. Hers was the company he sought when he felt at his loneliest. He desired her presence alone above the presence of a hundred people, because she was the one who understood him in the way others did not.

For this reason, Carlisle found himself dangerously reluctant to return to his shift.

To make matters worse, Valentine's Day was upon them, and the dewy-eyed stares from countless eager young females only made him more sick to his stomach. Just a year before he would have accepted the burden of their flirtatious attention with a secret blush and a bittersweet pang in his heart. But now the only feminine attention Carlisle desired was Esme's.

His feelings for her were so strong that now even the slightest perceived interest from another woman made him want to cower away in disgust. He was frightfully unfamiliar with these kinds of emotions, and though they were not in any way impairing to his chivalry, he still dreaded any interactions with the opposite sex in the wake of Esme's lingering touch.

To accidentally brush elbows with another woman now felt like the most reprehensible sin. He felt as if he had been soiled if another woman touched him. Where Esme's gaze made him feel full and strong and admired, the gaze of any other woman made him feel cheap and insecure and uncomfortable.

He had the distinct feeling that these kinds of emotions would only be temporary, at least to the extent with which he suffered from them now. But deep down he worried that as a vampire he was not likely to ever find relief from such affections. Once he had fallen in love with someone, that was the end of it. He was doomed to forever love Esme and recoil at the idea of love with another woman, no matter how kind and beautiful and worthy of love she might be.

Carlisle's time at the hospital that morning was riddled with such women, all of them more lovely than the last. He wondered where they were all coming from, and how they all knew to make an appearance during his shift, at this hospital, on this precise day...

Carlisle found himself sorely wishing that he had opted to take the night shift this week instead.

He should have foreseen the chaos that would ensue.

Whenever things grew too chaotic to handle, he reached into his pocket and found the silky hair ribbon he had stolen from Esme's vanity. When he was feeling anxious, he rubbed it between his fingers, and it helped him to find peace in a hectic time. It was like having a part of her with him wherever he went.

Whenever he could, he wore a surgical mask to keep people from recognizing him. But all of his efforts were in vain. They recognized him with or without any mask, blindfold, hat, or coat he could use to disguise himself. And they were merciless once they got a hold of him.

He had been asked a total of thirteen times whether or not he had plans later that evening. He had been told a total of twenty-seven times how wonderful a doctor he was. He had been tapped, touched, pinched, and prodded a grand total of forty-three times throughout the day.

By the end of his last hectic hour in the hospital, Carlisle was more exhausted than he wagered many of his human coworkers were. With all the flirting, simpering, and gift giving around every corner, he almost feared showing his face in the main hallway once more before he left.

Finally alone in his office, he took a quiet moment to settle into the chair behind his desk and close his eyes. His heart still stung with mild pleasure from the many compliments he had received that day, but the pleasure he felt from hearing other women's praise made him feel fantastically guilty.

Into his pocket his hand went, almost out of instinct. He knew that Esme's tiny lavender ribbon would be in there, and he had been aching for a moment to do more than just rub it between his fingers. Now that he was by himself, he could take it out and study it with his eyes. He could twist it around his baby finger and make a ring out of it. He could slide it between his fingers and thread it around his knuckles and wrap it around his wrist. Leaning back in his chair, he watched the snow outside his window, lost in a sleepy daydream as he absently slid the ribbon over his lower lip. He vaguely imagined how silky Esme's kiss would feel on his lips, much the same as that ribbon did.

He felt foolish for obsessing over that tiny ribbon. But it was a delicious, private kind of foolishness that he secretly enjoyed when no one else was watching. It was all right to be this way in only his own company. It made him feel a little bit sad, sorry for himself, but that was something he had grown used to feeling over the years. It was almost a comfort now.

The clock in his office chimed ten times to mark the close of the evening, and he tucked the ribbon safely back inside his pocket. But he was still trapped in his office with the stifling scent of store-bought florals and chocolate candies. Having overdosed quite enough on women's perfume throughout the day, his stomach was already churning as it was. It churned even more when he thought of facing what lay just outside his office door. He would have to find a way to escape undetected.

Thinking fast, Carlisle rushed to the window behind his desk and yanked it open, causing bits of frosted ice to shatter everywhere. He winced at the loud noise, hoping no one had caught it above the sounds of people bustling in the hallways. He took a quick peek out the window, deciding the distance was feasible for a human to jump safely. He then scooped up as many gifts and flower pots as he could reasonably carry in case he was seen, and he slipped deftly out his office window into the snowy grass beside the parking lot.

Several people stopped and gawked at him, one of them being the hospital administrator, but Carlisle's eagerness to leave the vicinity as soon as possible kept him from worrying about what they thought.

Soon he would be safe, a far distance away from all the nonsense that haunted him in this dreadfully crowded hospital. He would be free of the stress and the emergencies and the barking doctors and the whining nurses.

Looking back over his shoulder at the building he had once wished could be his home, Carlisle couldn't help but chuckle at the irony of it all. He wished to be as far away as possible from this place now. And he was thoroughly convinced that it was all the fault of one woman.

All the way to his car, Carlisle desperately wished he could give back all the gifts in his arms for just one kiss from Esme.

This thought stuck to his mind as he arranged his gifts in the trunk of his car, a faint smile forming as he imagined his lips covered with hers. He settled behind the driver's wheel and steered his way out of the parking lot, but his mind was already back in his warm home, awaiting the tempting embrace of Esme's slender arms.

Driving home in the snow was extremely lonely, no matter how prolonged the company had been before he locked himself into his car and drove away into the night. There was something about the silence of the roads on a snowy evening that unsettled Carlisle.

Nevertheless, when he finally pulled into his property, the soft golden glow of the windows on the bottom floor of the house stretched out through the frosty air directly into his heart. It was so hard to believe there had been a time when he doubted this old mansion would ever feel like home to him. It certainly felt like his home now, and though he was grateful to see it after such a long, exhausting day, a sliver of doubt mottled his mind as he thought back to the somewhat melancholy terms on which he had left Esme. Their exchange of apologies had brought him deep relief, but he still felt something crucial was missing, something that kept him from thinking it was appropriate to rush to her side as soon as he came into the house.

If only he had remembered it was Valentine's Day before he'd left for the hospital. It would saved him from the awkwardness of deciding whether or not it was right to share the themed greeting with her when he came through the door.

Just moments ago those lights glowing in the house had looked so inviting. Now they looked intimidating.

Carlisle dropped several flowers on his way up the sidewalk as he walked through the snow to reach the front door. The snowflakes streamed through the air like swarthy silver dancers, creating a peaceful ambiance for the evening that, despite their loveliness, could not permeate his bubble of anxiety.

He unlocked the door with his key, balancing the many gifts and flowers however he could. Some part of him hoped Esme would not be there just behind the door to greet him, for fear that the sight he made would be exceedingly embarrassing.

The door creaked open, the familiar squeaky note echoing in the front hall. Carlisle swallowed hard, looked around the edge of the door, and saw no one.

He sighed and stepped into the foyer, struggling for several minutes as he adjusted the load of gifts to take off his jacket and scarf. The sound of the closet door clicking shut sounded dismal and empty to his ears. Usually Esme was the one to close that door, after she had taken his coat from his hands and helped him to neatly hang it up.

He missed her warm, gentle welcome. He missed seeing her smile and hearing her voice first when he came home. She must have been busy with something or other upstairs.

Carlisle reluctantly left the foyer, and upon entering his study he groaned at the sight of the excessive flowers and cards that had already been placed all over his desk. Edward must have brought in the day's deliveries already.

Carlisle fit as many more gifts as he could onto the desk before his arms were nearly empty, then he carelessly dropped the rest of the cards onto the carpet by his feet.

He sifted idly through the envelopes, reading off the familiar names in his head. Many of them he recognized as the names of townspeople he had only met once before. He wondered with a slight spark of concern how they had remembered him.

It was dangerous to have so many acquaintances in one city. Carlisle hadn't realized the extent of his perceived popularity until he saw all the cards and envelopes piled up together in one daunting bundle.

Valentine's Day was worse than Christmas had been.

Shaking his head, Carlisle sat down behind his cluttered desk and began the tedious task of responding to each note he had received.

It promised to be a very long night.

******-}0{-**

Carlisle spent the dark hours dashing ink across each letter response in rough, black script. His hand was impatient, but he could not seem to write any faster as he usually did. His handwriting was not neat and elaborate; instead it was scrawled and untidy.

The flowers on his desk were distracting.

Every time he did manage to finish a response, he found his eyes drifting up to see the small blooms of baby's breath floating delicately in front of his face like fragrant snowflakes. They tickled his forehead if he leaned too close by accident, startling him from his train of thought.

Once as he was trying to address an envelope, he ended up leaning too close to the bouquet, and a brush of something velvety touched his temple. He looked up to find a full red rose lingering beside his head, close enough that his eyelashes would scrape its petals if he blinked. He pulled his face back to look at it, cupping it curiously in one hand as he brought his nose close to the center of the flower. He inhaled its sweet perfume, finding the familiar rose scent both cleansing and saddening. It reminded him of the lonely walks he'd taken through the gardens in Florence in springtime.

So many times he had been desperate enough to kiss the petals of a rose, imagining that they were really the lips of a woman.

Even now, as he stared into the blossom of soft scarlet velvet, he was tempted to let his lips wander the petals. Really, it could do no harm.

But his own embarrassment stopped him from kissing that rose he held in his hand. Under the watchful gaze of the other flowers it just did not feel right. The others would either feel neglected or jealous if he gave all his attention to one flower. He instead let his chin rest on the blossom's bed of lush petals for a few peaceful moments before he withdrew, brushing aside the clusters of baby's breath that dared to playfully intrude.

Outside, the snow brushed violently along the rooftop like the hooves of a restless reindeer, and the wind blowing against the house sounded like the hooves of a wild stallion. Carlisle submitted to idle thoughts as his hand mechanically responded to each Valentine's Day greeting he'd received. It was difficult to write when the words he wrote were not truly sincere. He barely knew the people to whom he was responding. The names he wrote were only washed out references to faces he had barely glanced at. They meant so little to him to begin with.

The sounds of the blizzard outside were frightfully distracting, keeping him from writing at full speed. It would have never been this way if he were writing in his journal. That kind of writing was feverish and consuming. This kind of writing was mundane and tiring.

With every other word he wrote, he found himself glancing over his shoulder through the window to see a flurry of thick snowflakes bombarding the glass like a thousand tiny white, fluffy bullets. He wanted to get up and close the curtains, but he didn't want to miss when the sun rose the next morning.

However, neither the blizzard nor the flowers were the only distractions keeping Carlisle from finishing his work. Just one room over, he could distinctly hear Esme scurrying about in the ballroom. His ears were obsessed with each stroke of paint as she decorated the final wall panels. The dexterity in her painting inspired his hand to shift from careless scrawl to a flawless calligraphy, causing his writing to carry on even slower. The gentle, smooth scrapes of paint bristles on paneling soothed his anxiety from the snow storm, but they did nothing to help his work along.

The morning arrived slowly, torturing him with weak slivers of sun rays that stretched lazily through his window to touch his shoulder. All of the windows in his study were encrusted with winter's wild white glitter. He was very glad he had kept the curtains open. This sunrise, though slow, was quite worth the occasional glance over his shoulder.

Just as the last ray of sun broke the horizon, Carlisle finished his final response, sealing it into a small white envelope and stamping it with a strong sense of finality.

Everything was done.

He looked up from the mess of envelops and ink splatters to stare ahead at the softly lit room. His eyes moved from the stained glass tiffany lamp to the empty fireplace, to the molten candelabras, to the unused globe in the corner of the room. Finally his gaze reached the doors to his study, finding they had been left open all night long.

He could hear the tentative tap of footsteps on the tile in the hall, but he did not even react. He could not explain why he was so exhausted, so worn down. Something in his soul felt sick this morning, and he speculated that it had little to do with the snow and more to do with Esme's prolonged absence from the night before.

His eyes peeked sullenly through the bunches of flowers on his desk to see the source of the distant footsteps as she approached the entry to his study.

Esme... approaching his haven... It was always such a sight.

"I see you have many grateful patients," she said cheerfully.

A small smile flickered on his lips as he idly picked the petals off a tulip with his finger. "I don't see what I could possibly do with all of these flowers. They're just clutter, really."

"Pretty clutter, though."

He raised his eyes to look at Esme through the veil of baby's breath and roses, and within the floral frame she looked ever more the painted beauty she truly was.

"Yes... pretty." His heart gave a fervent nod of appreciation within his chest.

He tore his eyes away hastily, aware that his staring must have made her uncomfortable.

"I don't know if you're interested but..." she began, her voice touched with uncertainty. "Well, I finished painting the ballroom this morning."

His eyes flicked back to her immediately, wide as a child's in a candy shop. "Did you? I would love to see it."

As he pushed his chair away and walked around his desk to approach her, he noticed her heading backwards toward the hallway. A pulse of excitement beat inside of him at the thought that she was finally prepared to show him what she had been working on for months now. He had not even allowed himself a peek into the room for fear of ruining the surprise. He promised himself he would only see it with her permission, when it was finished and ready.

She was smiling beautifully, which forced him to smile as well. It was amazing that such glumness could be replaced by joy in so short a time when he was around Esme. Her eagerness was more contagious than the common cold.

He followed her quickly down the hallway, toward the brilliant shaft of golden light that spilled from the open ballroom doors. Compared to the dimness of the small space, the grandeur of the brightened ballroom was twice as astounding.

Esme stood beside him silently, her hands clasped behind her back as she watched him take in the surroundings. He turned slowly, entirely aware of her eyes on him even as he admired the extent of her artistic perseverance. On each panel the emerald paint shimmered back at him like windows to an exotic jungle. Vines and leaves and swirling patterns stretched all across the walls, clashing gorgeously with the elegant golden siding.

Carlisle's mind flashed back to the times when he would spent evenings in the drawing rooms of French Nobility, surrounded by the delicate decor of the Rococo era. When he had first moved into this house, the ballroom was filled with nothing more than dusty cobwebs, chipped tiles, and peeled paint. But now it was a masterpiece, all because of Esme's passion for restoration.

"Oh, Esme. You've worked so hard... It's breathtaking," he complimented, still unable to take his eyes away from the enchanting walls.

"Thank you." Her voice was small but notably appreciative.

Carlisle slowly turned around to face her, a look of mild pity on his face. "It is such a shame that no one but us will have the chance to see it."

"I don't mind." She shrugged with a good-natured smile. "It kept me occupied for the past six months."

This reminded Carlisle of how long she had spent with so little to do around the house. True, she could produce such beauty in a matter of months, but the fact that she had been forced into it out of restless boredom made him feel incredibly guilty. He looked down at the shining floor and bit his lip.

"Clearly all of your time paid off," Edward's voice intervened graciously from the doorway.

Carlisle met the boy's eyes pointedly, thanking him through his thoughts. "Yes, it looks lovely, Esme," he agreed gently.

To his surprise, a teasing smile took over her soft red lips. "You're not still disappointed that I painted over the dancing debutantes?" she asked with a gesture to the newly painted walls.

Carlisle laughed along with her in relief, remembering his initial shock when she painted over the original antique art. "If I hadn't been cursed with a perfect memory, I believe I would have forgotten about that by now."

"Thank goodness."

Their laughter combined in a well-seasoned song that Carlisle had found himself growing incredibly attached to over the past few months. He wanted to hear it every day for as long as they were living under the same roof. Nothing was more satisfying to him than the sound of Esme's laughter. It was something he could only compare to the satisfaction he felt whenever a patient's heartbeat came back to life.

His eyes latched onto hers in the midst of her amusement, and he watched something fade and flicker in her gaze as she stared at him with nothing veiled between them. Just a stark, honest stare that made him squirm with strange, numbing feelings.

Suddenly Edward's presence was awfully nerve-wracking.

The thought must have been particularly strong in Carlisle's head, for in the next instant, the boy disappeared into the hall, leaving them alone in the ballroom.

Aware that they now shared the awkward space, Esme stepped up to her wall painting and examined it more closely, as if there could be any imperfections visible on something she had created.

Carlisle watched her from behind with obsessive eyes, scrutinizing every delicious detail of her small body from behind, just as she scrutinized the painting in front of her. He admired the way her dress clung snugly to her waist, the way her arms looked so graceful in the flowing sleeves, the way her ankles gingerly tipped up when she stood on tiptoe to get a closer look at the paint. Everything about her seemed specifically designed for the purpose of enticing his arms to reach out and grasp her in a fiercely loving embrace.

He firmly swallowed all of his desires before attempting to say her name. "Esme?"

The sound echoed off the golden panels, sparkled softly in the crystals of the newly dusted chandelier, and caressed his lonely soul in two lovely syllables.

"Hm?" Slowly, she turned around.

"Remember when you said little girls never outgrow their fondness for flowers?" he asked softly, his voice spilling over with affection.

Her tiny giggle pricked him in the heart. "Of course."

"Well, I was wondering if you were an exception," he said.

"No, I am not," she answered him with a knowing smile.

He grinned openly and stepped forward. "Then...the 'pretty clutter' in my study? You can keep it."

Her dimples deepened as she beamed at his generosity. Such a reaction made Carlisle vow to find a thousand other gifts he could give to her by tomorrow morning.

"Whatever will I do with all of those flowers?" she asked teasingly.

The brief image of Esme lying nude in a bed of roses and baby's breath infiltrated Carlisle's thoughts at her innocent question. The dream faded as quickly as it had come, but he was nevertheless sincerely glad that Edward had decided to leave moments before.

"Anything you want," he answered her huskily, regaining control on his overactive imagination. "With so many of them, you could probably reconstruct the Garden of Eden," he said with a clever smile.

She laughed freely at that, the bubbly sound was so addictive and intoxicating it was quite nearly dangerous for him to hear. The more he heard it, the more he wanted it.

"Thank you," she said. Her glowing orange eyes pierced him appealingly. "For the flowers, and the suggestion."

All he needed now was her full promise of forgiveness and things would be back to the way they were. He knew that no amount of flowers could amend just any disagreement, but it was all he had to offer her aside from his heart and soul.

"Is all forgiven between us, then?" he asked, hating the way his accent dominated the tentative words.

Esme's face brightened with utmost sincerity, and like a miracle, everything he had ever worried over in the past week slipped from between his fingers like insignificant grains of sand.

"Of course, Carlisle," she said, his name like silk on her tongue.

The thin, flowing material of her sleeves grazed his arms as she reached out to embrace him, her hands firm around his shoulders, pulling him close. The gentle curves of her feminine body molded intimately against his chest, inspiring a hundred unmentionable sentences he planned to write the next time he was alone with his journal. He felt himself enveloped in her fragrance, drowning in her beauty, and he knew he never wanted to be anywhere else.

"Happy...belated Valentine's Day, Esme," he murmured with a gentle chuckle.

And as her sweet laughter echoed along with his, he thought he could feel her hold him even tighter.


	30. Hot Blooded Surrender

**Hot Blooded Surrender**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 51: As the Clouds Cry" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

Although Carlisle considered the Denalis his closest friends in the country, his letters were always addressed specifically to Eleazar and his wife. It was not that Carlisle thought poorly of the rest of their sisters, but that his interests were more compatible with those of Eleazar and Carmen. They were warmer, more hospitable, and their presence had always made him feel comfortable.

It had not been since the beginning of January he had written or received a letter from the Denali family. The purpose of his last letter sent had been mainly to inform them of Esme, however he attempted to water down the event by updating them on Edward as well. In his last letter, Carlisle had taken care not to describe Esme as any more than "the newest member of the coven." Yet the responding letter (which had been written in Carmen's hand) had presumed much more. He should have known that Carmen and Eleazar would assume that Esme's transformation had been for his own desire to take a mate. They had far more liberal views when it came to creating vampires, and to them, exchanging blood for venom in any human woman who appealed to him would not seem so despicable a reason to grant someone immortality.

As much as it disappointed him that they had misinterpreted his intentions behind welcoming Esme into the family, Carlisle decided not to defend himself against their presumptions. Seeing that his intentions, while noble at their birth, were now more questionable by the day, he instead decided that the time had come to extend an invitation to the pair. He would let them see for themselves how things were working out for his small but comfortable coven.

Carlisle sat down at his desk that cold February evening and began to write the Denalis a letter.

_My dearest friends,_

_Life, as always, has been interesting. As you well know, my days are now even more demanding with two members of my coven to look after. However, I consider my duties to them both far from a burden. I have always desired a family of my own, and I cannot express in writing how great a blessing I have found their company to be. _

_The company of my dear friends is also a blessing that I have been missing of late. Therefore it is with deepest earnest that I extend to your family an invitation to join us in our Ashland home for however long a time as you would like to stay. I would be delighted to make the arrangements for your visit in the springtime, when the weather has improved. You will find that rain is generous in these parts during the spring season, an advantage I believe we will all appreciate. _

_I look forward to receiving your letter of response, in the hopes that we can expect your company in the spring._

_Yours eternally,_

_Carlisle_

He folded the letter into thirds and tucked it into an envelope before gathering the rest of his patients' documents together in preparation to burn them outside. He could already smell the smoke burning from the fire he had made earlier. After tying the papers in a bundle he walked into the snowy night until he reached the fire pit, and he dropped the papers into the flames.

After a few more trips back and forth from his study, he finally began to feel the familiar sense of cleansing rejuvenation that came with burning medical documents. It was a little bit similar to the feeling he had whenever he went to burn his journals. There was nothing quite like watching the burdens of a decade crumble into ash before his very eyes. Each paper was a feather-light weight that was being lifted from his shoulders. With every page that disintegrated into tiny red embers, he felt the cares of the past year melt away. It felt safe, clean, comforting. And the warmth from the fire was particularly welcoming on such a bitterly cold night.

Carlisle spent most of the night sitting on a log beside the fire, watching the papers as they burned. He foolishly felt that if he were to leave the fire unattended, danger would come to the property surrounding it. Despite the fact that piles of snow still covered the ground, he felt it was his responsibility to watch that fire until the last flame was snuffed out by the wind.

He tugged his gloves tighter over his hands and shifted his seating place. His eyes drifted to the side of the log on which he sat, wishing there was someone to fill the empty space beside him. Edward had stopped by once earlier that evening to inform Carlisle that Esme was finding the smell of the fire distracting. While the thought had initially prompted Carlisle to pour a bucket of water over the flames and apologize to her immediately, after some more thought on the matter, he decided to wait in the hopes that she might come out and tell him herself if she thought the scent of the smoke to be a distraction.

Every half hour or so, his gaze flickered hopefully up to the porch steps, anticipating that he might see her pretty face peeking around the corner before she came to find him.

But before he knew it, three hours had passed and Esme had yet to show up.

The fire on the tinder had dimmed, just as the fire in his heart did with every second he spent alone in the cold night.

The clock inside the house chimed a few times, followed by a faint rustle of motion and some light footsteps down the stairs. Edward was still in the cellar. The movement in the house had to be Esme.

A very strange ache inside his chest prompted Carlisle to rip off the uncomfortable pair of gloves and snatch up his lantern to make his way towards the front door. Even if she had just come down to request that he put out the fire, he would not pass up the chance to see her right away.

The lantern's beam of pale orange light guided his way across the snowy porch to the door where Esme was waiting in the threshold. A soft green blanket had been draped across her shoulders, and her cheeks had a pleasant glow in the lantern light as he approached. The sight of her was so welcoming, he felt almost delirious with joy.

"You've been out here all night," she said. Her voice had a weak bite to it, but he could not even bring himself to care, he was just so happy to see her.

With a grin, he absently fitted the gloves back onto his hands, hoping to hide the way they were trembling from excitement. "Yes, I've been out here... all night."

Her arms folded over her chest as she stated softly, "I don't like it when you leave."

Carlisle's smile was replaced by a frown. "I don't leave."

"You aren't in the house," she said significantly, her eyes flickering towards the warm interior behind her.

Taking advantage of her apparent displeasure, Carlisle raised the lantern to his face and requested with a laugh, "Why don't you come out, then?"

"Why can't you just come in?" she argued.

"I want to walk."

"Then walk the halls."

Now she was just being ridiculous.

"I want to walk _outside._"

She paused before her lips could form another comeback, knowing it was pointless. He smiled, pleased that he had given her no choice but to follow him. To soften the blow, he tipped his head back in a gentle invitation for her to follow him. "Come with me."

Her eyes glistened apprehensively at his words, her arms slowly uncrossing as the wind played with the threaded tassels of her blanket. At least she looked to be considering his offer.

"Yes. Fine."

Just those two words were worth more than gold to him. They promised her company.

Her shoulders lifted, letting the blanket slide closer around her neck. She shut the door behind her and walked up beside him, her delicious scent infusing the chilly air with the breath of springtime. Without thinking, Carlisle set the lantern down on the porch so that both his arms would be free to hold her while they walked. His smile grew secretively as she nudged her body against his, walking so closely next to him that they were nearly stepping on each other's feet.

The tufts of snow adorning the skeletal branches of the trees around him now looked inviting where they had once looked so sad and dismal. It was incredible how Esme's presence could bring such a warm glow to a stony winter night.

Carlisle distinctly felt her eyes on him, glancing up at his mirthful smile with suspicion while they walked through the snow.

"I thought you hated the cold," she said, her voice drifting with confusion. He couldn't help but chuckle.

"I do."

She looked around curiously. "Then why were you fumbling around out here all night?"

He nodded towards the low burning fire as they rounded the corner of the house. "I was burning some documents."

Her face lit with understanding. "So that's where all the smoke was coming from."

He felt badly that it had bothered her before, and he pondered for a moment whether he should apologize for it. But seeing her face was not in the least displeased now, he decided it was better to feign obliviousness on the subject.

Noticing there were a few more papers that had yet to be burned, Carlisle quickly fed them to the fire, satisfied by the impressive flurry of flames that roared to life. As foolish as it may have seemed, making the fire bigger for Esme somehow made him feel more confident and masculine.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at himself as he hopelessly sat himself down on the log in front of the fire pit. Esme watched from afar for a few moments before she approached apprehensively, skirting the banks of snow with her slightly too-big shoes.

"Don't injure yourself," he laughed, ridiculously happy for the excuse to offer her his arm. She clasped him tightly as he helped her to sit, her face showing signs of restrained amusement. For a brief, thrilling moment, he wondered if she had planned her misstep on purpose.

Chewing back a smile of his own, Carlisle threw his attention back to the flickering flames. His nose was tickled by the sweet vapors of the fire and the delicate, fertile notes of Esme's enticing scent. The mingling of aromas in the cool winter night was inebriating and sultry, reminding him of Eastern spices and the way they infused the air with a pleasant sting.

Fair images of Esme's face danced in the flames as he breathed deeply, overwhelmed with a sense of comfort and contentment at having her nearby. His mind was blissfully empty save for the glistening streams of firelight and the sweet strains of warmth battling against the chill of the air around him. Strangely, he felt that more warmth emanated from the woman beside him than the fire in front of him.

Carlisle could feel that heat radiating towards his cheek from the place where Esme sat. Out of the corner of his eye, it suddenly became clearer that her gaze was fixated on his face. The urge to smile under her obvious scrutiny was too great to resist.

Abruptly, he turned to her with a self-conscious grin. "What?"

A hesitant smile crept onto her face as she raised her palms in defense. "Nothing. It's just..." she paused, her gaze turning apprehensive. "If I'd known you were out here just watching the fire all by yourself, I might have come out sooner—"

"No, no," he sighed, quickly waving away her concerns. "Edward was with me for a while. You were reading. I didn't want to bother you."

Even though Edward was only with him for all but two seconds, and he did briefly consider interrupting her reading time with a request for company, Carlisle decided it better not to admit these things to Esme's face.

"You're never a bother to me," she said, the tone of her voice laced with pity.

The fierce but gentle care in her eyes, in her expression was so intense he had to look away. A fresh wave of embarrassment overcame him, causing his chest to tighten and his lip to tremble. He carefully caught his lip with his teeth to hide the reaction, frantic with the thought that she could tell precisely what he was thinking before she even said the words.

He could not think of one suitable response to express how much her concern meant to him without doubling his embarrassment. So he remained silent and let the fire crackle on.

To his delayed relief, Esme's smiling voice penetrated the silence. "I turned my library into a garden with the 'Valentine' flowers you gave me."

His imagination smiled broadly at the thought that all those flowers had been put to good use in Esme's hands. Particularly the roses and the baby's breath. He had imagined those suiting her quite well in many ways...

Carlisle raised a hand to rub the heat away from his cheek, laughing feebly. "They don't last very long in this weather."

Esme smiled knowingly as the glimmer of their shared joke brightened the gloomy darkness around them. "Yes, many of them are already dead."

He gave a short burst of a chuckle, amused by the matter-of-fact way she said it.

"That was bound to happen after a week or two."

She smiled with a shrug, and the downy green blanket slipped over her narrow shoulders. "It's all right. They still keep me company."

"Company." He repeated her final word in a voice that was revealingly raw and raspy. Instantly wishing he could take it back, he turned to face the fire, ignoring the blaze of her eyes boring into him.

Company was all he desired, and company was now what he had, thanks to Esme. Her presence was never more appreciated, but it seemed the more she addressed the issue, the more it hurt him to remember it. He was beginning to realize that the sting of loneliness would never truly leave him no matter how often he was in the presence of others. Deep down there would always be the instinctive fear that he would lose the person sitting right beside him...

"The next time you're alone out here, tell me. Right away." Esme's words were firm, maternal, demanding. They thrilled him.

His eyes returned to her face in an instant, and a rush of pristine heat filled his chest.

"It isn't a problem for me anymore - being alone." Even though he knew it was a lie, he did not want her to worry over him. Most of all, he did not want her pity. He did not deserve it.

In a dark whisper, she refuted him. "I don't believe that."

Carlisle reeled, feeling as if he had just been plunged in hot water, naked from head to foot. The sensation blossomed in beautiful intensity as Esme's delicate fingers lifted to explore the half-hidden curve beneath his jaw. Her thumb pressed a gentle path over his chin as if feeling the texture of his skin.

In the ostentatious flares from the fire, her gorgeous face gleamed, and it sent a sensation like luxurious thunder purring through his heart. The very tremble in her rose-petal lips as she looked upon his face was a maddening knife in his control. Above it all, her eyes shimmered like precious stones, lit from their depths with a thousand delicious secrets.

Her lips opened ever so slightly, the duality of the gesture torturing him with the anticipation of whether her intention was to speak words...or to invite his kiss.

His eyes closed, his body aflame with tremulous trust as he waited to discover which she would do, hoping that his heavy hints would encourage her to perform the latter. Her lips were like satin. She was so close he could almost taste her.

"You're not arguing with me, Carlisle," she admonished in an awe-struck whisper.

Wondering what the meaning behind her words was in his hazy state, he murmured back sleepily, "Do you expect me to?"

She answered him with silence, but the dewy scent of her breath was even sweeter when it washed over his face. Oh, how it tortured him! Just a few inches closer and that scent could be a taste.

Hoping to keep her there for as long as possible, he brought his hand up to hold her fingers against his jaw, loathing the fact that his own fingers were still encased in black leather gloves.

"I hate that you ever have to feel alone," she murmured resolutely, her conviction both delicious and demeaning at once. It was slightly frustrating how she spoke to him as if his loneliness were a burden he was not only unwilling, but _unable_ to carry.

His eyelids lifted, drawing in the beauty of her pale, fire-lit face. Patiently, he attempted to put her concerns to rest. "There is a difference between being alone and being lonely."

"Were you lonely?" she asked in earnest, her voice still hushed.

He pulled away slightly to lock their eyes. "That isn't the question you meant to ask."

Her eyes peered up at him, swimming with meaning. "_Are_ you lonely?"

The truth dawned on him with her whispered question, and a genuine smile crossed his still aching lips. "No."

The bittersweet residue of his desire for her kiss melted away with the last dying flames on the fire, replaced by a simple need to be closer to her. His hand kept a firm grip on hers as she lowered her fingers from his chin, coming to rest on her thigh.

"Will you come inside now?" she asked secretively.

"Yes," he agreed at once.

"Come with me." Her brilliant grin sent his stomach into twisting knots as she pulled him upright and tugged him back into the house.

Several minutes later, he was gathering his things together in his study, preparing to leave for his shift at the hospital. It was a dreaded time of day when he had to leave his family. But he looked forward to the comforting little ritual Esme conducted in the foyer just before he would leave. He loved to watch her as she flitted about importantly, helping him get ready.

He had been perfectly capable of preparing for work on his own for many decades, but now that Esme was a part of his morning routine, Carlisle suddenly found himself wondering how he had managed at all without the touch of a woman to guide him.

"I still smell like smoke," he said absently, trying in vain to fit his hands into the leather gloves that had been giving him trouble all night long. They seemed to have magically shrunk in the cold weather.

"Your patients will think you caught on fire," Esme said with an infectious giggle, her hands fussing over the crooked scarf around his neck. "You do spend quite a lot of time in front of the fireplace." She half-winked, smiling like an angel as she nearly strangled him with her busy little hands.

_Oh, Lord, how he loved this. _

"At least you'll have a somewhat exciting excuse for why you were so late," Edward muttered unappreciatively, clearly eager to see his father leave along with all of his distressingly personal thoughts of Esme's hands.

Carlisle suppressed a growl of irritation as he snapped the clasp shut on his doctor's bag and stepped in front of the mirror for one last try to fit his hand into the leather glove.

"Your hands are quite large," Esme said. For such an innocent remark, Carlisle was surprised by how much it pleased him. The things she noticed were delightfully strange.

He was vaguely aware that Edward was laughing in the background, but he frankly didn't care.

"For the gloves," she added hastily, looking somewhat embarrassed. She pinched the tip of one leather finger and slid the glove off his hand. "These gloves are too small."

"Well, they're of no use then, I suppose," Carlisle said, handing the pair of gloves to her. She folded them neatly in her hands and smiled graciously as if he had just given her a very thoughtful gift.

He turned around to open the door, his spirits immediately dampened by the frosty air that blustered into the foyer. Just outside, dawn lit a match on the horizon, spreading its pale yellow limbs over the frozen forest. Despite how beautiful the scene was, Carlisle found that he would have much rather stayed trapped inside the house with Esme. It didn't matter what they would be doing. The thought of leaving her for however brief a time was maddening, and it was getting worse every single day.

"I'll be back early today," he informed them, making the decision right on the spot. Edward's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"How early?" Esme asked eagerly.

Caught off-guard by her overwhelming interest, Carlisle stammered a clumsy response. "Very. Really, very...early."

"Good." Her teeth shone like tiny pearls, her dimples teasing. Already, he could not wait to see that same smile when he came home again.

He smiled weakly back before stepping out into the frosty morning.

The door shut behind him, and it might as well have been a fist against his chest.

******-}0{-**

Knowing that Esme was looking forward to his return made Carlisle all the more anxious to get through his shift quickly. He arrived at the hospital two minutes early, but it was not a pleasant scene that welcomed him. He could hear the chaotic shouts and troubled whispers of busy doctors and nurses all the way from the street. He dreaded opening the door, knowing that his help would be requested at every corner he turned. Breathing the last gulp of icy air into his lungs, he braced himself and went inside to find the hospital's halls in a flurry of panic.

It was a whirlwind from that moment on. A gaggle of complaining nurses flurried towards him, tugging his arms in different directions, making requests that probably should have been extended to someone in a higher position than he was. They all came to him as if he knew the answers to everything, as if he were infallible.

This was certainly not the case, as he was about to find out that very day.

He had watched many men die at his hand, because of a wrong decision or an incorrect diagnosis. But for reasons he could not explain, this time around it was harder than ever to accept.

When he was alone, it was all right to fail. Before he had a family of his own, it was acceptable to make mistakes and never have to share them with anyone other than his closest colleagues. But family had expectations. Carlisle felt the pressure now to always return home with a smile on his face, to be in an agreeable mood at all times.

Now, when he had a rough day at the hospital, Carlisle felt an immense pressure to pretend it had no affect on him. It was of course mostly for Esme's sake; Edward would read his thoughts and know the truth no matter what. But Carlisle wished Esme never had to know about the terrible things he was sometimes forced to see at the hospital.

As the saying went, when it rained, it poured.

As if making a crucial error that cost a patient his life weren't horrible enough, Carlisle found himself at the end of the day, watching the mother of a newborn child die on her bed while her own husband witnessed the ordeal from behind a glass pane.

The mother was fortunate to have been in the hospital for an illness beforehand. Most women did not have the aid of a doctor while giving birth. They often had to do it in their homes with the help of a single midwife and hope for the best. It made him feel all the more ashamed to think that not even the hospital could help her stay alive through the worst of it.

As he watched the crying infant – a bloody, helpless mess – being brought into the world, all he could think of was one thing. _This child would never know his mother. _

And when Carlisle saw a child with no mother, he saw himself.

It was not often that Carlisle found himself so emotionally torn over an incident that he had to hand over the case to another doctor. But this one was too much for him to take.

He saw the way the other doctors were looking at him; they knew something was troubling him. They speculated about his history all of the time, and incidents like this only gave them more ingredients to add to the gossip cauldron. It was just another useless piece for them to try and fit into a puzzle that would never be solved.

Carlisle immediately went and locked himself in his office to try and clear his mind. It would have been wise to leave the premises as soon as possible, but to leave now would only bring him home faster, and he was not sure he could face Esme and Edward the way he was feeling now.

Not five minutes earlier, all he could think about was leaving this place. Now he wanted to do nothing but stare so hard at the white wall behind his desk that his mind became the same white, blank slate.

Hiding his stress was going to be challenging when he got home. He was not looking forward to that. But seeing Esme would surely be more healing than any blank wall.

Deep in the halls of the hospital, he could still hear the echoes of the newborn baby's cries. _The cries to which a mother would never respond._

With one last minute of thoughtless prayer, Carlisle stood up slowly in a final attempt to shake the images of the helpless baby boy out of his mind. His heart felt heavy as he packed his things up to leave, and a stinging guilt almost stopped him from escaping before the end of his shift.

He had told Esme he would back very early, and he was going to keep that promise.

As he walked back through the winter afternoon towards his car, the snow fell softly and silently, glazing the forest with weeping crystals and painting the ground an endless sea of white.

******-}0{-**

Carlisle could hardly remember the last time he was so relieved to hear the creak of the front door when he came home. He could hear Esme's happy, chiming voice coming from deep in the house, and it drew him into the dark hallway, guiding him to the sitting room. There in front of the window, two easels had been propped with half-finished canvases. A feeble smile crossed Carlisle's face as he looked back and forth between the two, easily guessing which belonged to his son.

Esme stood beside Edward, pointing out the details in the paint and preaching about the use of colors. Seeing her this way, Carlisle had no doubts that Esme had always been suited to teach. Her passion for art was infectious, and just from a few moments of half-listening to her ramble about painting, he found that his fingers were already twitching to pick up a paintbrush.

Not only that, but she _looked_ exquisite. She wore a delicate lavender skirt and matching blouse, a color he had always found to be most flattering on her. But it was not without a stitch of guilt that he admired her in the color. He recalled that the infamous hair ribbon he'd stolen from her was that very same color. He wondered if it had been made to match this very outfit. Would she be wearing it now if it had not mysteriously vanished from her room?

Carlisle's suspicions were put to ease when he noticed that Esme had found another ribbon to put to use today. Her fair tawny hair, fashioned to dance free in soft curls about her shoulders, had been secured away from her face. Carlisle had noted long ago that Esme often pulled her hair back as a convenience for when she did certain activities like painting or reading. Sometimes in his daydreams he would simply walk up behind her while she was scribbling away in her sketchbook, and he would carefully unwind the ribbon that knotted her hair. A sweet sensation of satisfaction would fill him as he watched the confined curls tumble freely down the back of her elegant neck...

But it was only a daydream, and a daydream it would remain for so long as he had not the courage to act on it.

A gentle breeze of contentment enveloped him nonetheless as he admired the way her small body flitted around the room, her face glowing with far too much excitement. The depression that still infected his body was muted as he lost himself in the moment, lingering discreetly against the wall so that he could watch the scene in silence.

Esme gestured to the window, then repeatedly to Edward's canvas as she attempted to explain something to her ungrateful pupil. Carlisle smiled softly in pity at her attempts. Edward's stubborn impatience was not going to sit well with the dynamics of oil and turpentine, that was for certain.

But Esme, bless her soul, was so determined to make Edward appreciate what he had created. She was insistent that he find the beauty in the bare bones of an amateur landscape, so fixed on helping him find that spark of inspiration... And for all her effort of trying to inspire Edward, she had unwittingly inspired his father instead.

Her words went right over Edward's head, but Carlisle could hear the earnest excitement in her tone, and that was enough to touch his heart the way a fine-tipped paintbrush touches clean canvas. Her mark was gentle in that it was unassuming, but this made it all the more powerful to him.

Everything about her was endearingly mesmerizing. The way her bare feet pranced over the carpets, the way her long hair fluttered out behind her when she rushed for something across the room. Most especially the way her skirt flowed gently against her knees when she tried to remain standing still, exposing the telltale signs of her fidgeting.

Carlisle was so distracted by every move she made that he hardly noticed when Edward brushed past him to get through the door, leaving him all alone with the object of his affections.

"You've been awfully quiet," Esme said subtly, her full red lips twisting into an ideal feminine smile as she looked over her shoulder at him. "I'd hardly realized you were here."

Carlisle smiled back weakly, unsure if his knees could hold him up for much longer without the support of the wall on which he still leaned. Sighing, he forced himself to stand upright as he walked over to Esme.

"My son is terribly ungrateful for all your efforts to teach him," he said apologetically, on Edward's behalf.

"He has every right to be stubborn," she said nonchalantly, her eyes fondly forgiving when she thought of Edward. "And he's right, anyway. I would probably be just as frustrated to learn just one song by myself on the piano."

Carlisle lost himself in Esme's eyes, thinking back on the time when Edward's encouragement had forced them to play a duet together. After such a dissatisfying day at the hospital, making music with Esme again sounded awfully appealing.

"Are you all right?" she asked, waking him from the brief daydream.

His head bobbed once with a noncommittal nod, but she knew better than to further press the matter. At once, she picked up her oil brush and resumed painting.

How he loved to watch her. The way she treated the colors was fascinating and hypnotic. Every stroke she made was one of brilliant purpose, and the way she rendered true to life objects on her canvas was ingenious. For all his secret efforts to produce stunning canvases of his own, Carlisle could never seem to ignite the same lifelike magic in his paintings as Esme did. That was why he kept his paintings hidden.

He could watch Esme paint all day and never stop learning from her. Perhaps one day, if they were ever close enough, he would find the courage to show her one of his finished paintings. Perhaps someday when she felt comfortable having him this close, she would let him _write_ about her painting – while he was watching her. Then again, maybe it would be a better idea if he did that in secret.

"Oh, I've ruined it yet again," she announced in amused resignation. Carlisle admired the way Esme was able to laugh at her mistake instead of becoming flustered and tempered like Edward had. She swiped at the misshapen strokes with the end of a moist cloth and attempted to clean them up.

"Everything you do looks perfect," he blurted out.

From the side he could see the way her cheek puffed out with a flattered smile. She let her hair fall into her face slightly to hide it, but her tone was teasing as she sent back a friendly retort. "Surely you jest, Doctor."

She let her hair slip back to reveal her eyes, but the moment was gone too quickly before she immediately looked away from him. Her shyness at his compliments was so endearing.

He leaned in, watching as the touch of his breath made the tiny wisps of hair on the sides of her forehead tremble. "This is my favorite," he said, pointing to the part of the canvas where she had fashioned a startlingly realistic evergreen with frost crystals on its branches. "Right in here...every nuance in the colors. I don't know how you do it."

Before he could hear her response, Edward's voice interrupted casually from the door. "I'm guessing I need some water if I'm going to use watercolors."

Carlisle's eyes snapped to the doorway in warning. Edward was at least polite enough to hold back any remarks about how close they appeared before he backed away into the hall. He had hinted that he would not be back immediately, but did he really expect his father to act on impulse with such short notice?

"What is it?" Esme asked, the curiosity in her voice an ever-present threat to Carlisle's private nature.

"Hm? Oh, nothing. I'm fine."

He looked quickly away, but there was no way to escape her wandering eyes. He heard the clink of her paintbrush being set down, and shortly after, the gentle touch of her fingers on his sleeve.

"Carlisle, I can see something is wrong," she said quietly. "You don't have to hide it. You can tell me anything, remember?"

She implied that she knew what he was thinking, but she had no idea. His dilemma was always doomed to revolve around her. Rarely did he think of anything else these days. If there was another problem that bothered him, his quest for her heart trampled it down to shreds the second he walked through the door to their home. Now, he found himself in the ironic situation of having to search desperately for a different problem to share with her.

A more appropriate problem was still a problem he did not wish to share, but with every second he wasted, he could feel her suspicion growing. If he had to tell her something, it might as well be half-true.

"I made an incorrect diagnosis today," he said before he could think the better of it. "It may have cost my patient his life."

Sharing such a shameful mistake was not as degrading as he thought it would be. It was almost...comforting. Esme looked at him openly, without judgment, as if the pity had yet to enter her eyes.

"It happens to all doctors... Doesn't it?" she asked timidly. Her innocence provoked Carlisle's pity.

"I have less tolerance for such mistakes because of...what I am, Esme," he tried to explain, feeling at odds with himself already.

"What you _are_ is a doctor," she defended boldly, her eyes fresh with soft fire. "In the hospital, that is what you are. You have as much right to be mistaken about something as the next doctor. Being so hard on yourself just because you aren't human is wrong, Carlisle..." She shook her head slowly as she scrutinized his face. "You should know that."

Carlisle stopped breathing for a moment. He could not believe what had just happened. He had not even planned to share with Esme one detail of what happened to him at the hospital that day, and now here he was, eager to recite for her his entire life's book of hours because of what she had said.

"You're right. I should know that," he agreed absently, his eyes glued onto her fiery gaze. She was practically heaving with conviction, all in _his _favor. Nothing ever felt more empowering than knowing Esme was on his side.

"You're a wonderful doctor. Nothing can change that," she continued, her voice softening as she calmed down. "Even the best doctors make mistakes. It's... human to make mistakes."

His heart stumbled upon hearing the bittersweet descriptor. _Human _he would never be again, yet this was her first comparison. It almost flattered him.

His mind was a flurry of confusion and comfort, all the while thinking he _needed _her to know more of his insecurities. He needed to tell her everything that brought him pain, that made him sad, that caused him distress. It reminded him of how revealing his past secrets to her had felt so cleansing to his heart. If he could share with Esme something as intimate as his relationship with his father, then how could he not share with her the shortcomings of his daily life? If he could reveal the past, why not reveal the _present_?

"There's more?" she asked, so in tune with his every thought it nearly frightened him.

His eyes locked onto hers as he nodded his head.

"Tell me?" she whispered invitingly.

His thirst for her comfort threw him over the edge before he could restrain himself. "A patient of mine passed away while...giving birth to her son." His voice cracked with emotion as he looked away from Esme's unblinking eyes to the safety of the window. "The boy lived. His mother is gone."

He waited uselessly for Esme to say something, but he knew deep down that she would not have the heart to ask him for an elaboration. This was not a trivial error that all doctors were expected to accept with ease; this was a personal pressure, a weight that rested solely on his own past. Carlisle had seen many parents pass away, and many children learn to live without their parents, but to share that moment's response of weakness with Esme only strengthened its significance.

"I was reminded..." _Of my mother and me._ He longed to say the words, but he was cut short. Resolving to never think of it again was useless. Esme's persistence was going to bring it to the forefront before she forced it to drown, but he trusted her to do that.

Pain came first, but bliss always followed her tender touch. She was always seeking the way to do it – to soothe his pain without forcing him to revisit it.

Her hand clasped his arm with a guiding grip, and her eyes burned into his as if she could see every lost longing that resided in his soul.

She hushed him like a mother would hush her sleeping baby, her voice reminding him of softness and slumber as she drew him closer. "I know, I know..."

She was so...wonderful. Soft, warm, fragrant. Giving.

The comfort that descended around him was indescribable. From just a handful of words and significant glances from Esme, his fractured heart was nearly sealed. Something that would have taken weeks to forget if he'd kept it to himself was now more than halfway through to being healed completely.

Esme's support and understanding were invaluable to him. He was always forgetting just how much.

Carlisle's eyes opened up to find his fingers gripping the end of a paintbrush, and Esme looking up to him with a familiar, loving smile on her face.

"What colors do you see in the snow?"

******-}0{-**

During the next few weeks, Carlisle felt his barriers coming down. His work schedule was demanding, but Esme was always there to greet him at the door when he came home. It was without a doubt the best part of his day no matter how successful his day at the hospital had been.

Nothing could compare to Esme and the joy she brought him. Even Edward was proving to be a most delightful companion to have around the house, whether his mood was favorable or not.

Carlisle's heart smiled in bittersweet farewell to the snow and ice, welcoming the torrents of rain and storms with open arms. Spring weather was favorable for their kind, and even more pleasant after the ruthless months of frost and blizzards.

He watched the worries of winter vanish, the last remaining snow banks melting like piles of sugar under hot water as the rain poured down. Rain lasted nights, mornings, afternoons, evenings, then nights again. Rain went on endlessly, flooding the lake behind their house and soaking the trees until the buds of leaves that had yet to be born came peeking out of the ends of branches.

Carlisle wondered if he should take time off work to build an ark. A great flood was certainly upon them.

Esme seemed to be enjoying it just as well. As fascinating as he found the rain, Carlisle would never stare out the window for too long before finding another distraction. He would much rather watch _her _as she watched the rain.

She was like a child sometimes, the way she pasted her palms to the glass and breathed little blossoms of steam onto the cool pane of a window. Her large eyes blinked and her lips curved into a secret smile as she studied the tiny, sliding droplets.

As Carlisle looked at her when she was unaware of his gaze, he could not help feeling a tad guilty about it, as if he were really a wolf spying lewdly on a gentle white sheep. There was nothing perverse about watching a woman while she admired the rain, but when it came to watching Esme, no amount of staring would ever flatter Carlisle's innocence.

He would only last so long before he had either to tear his eyes away and find something more constructive to do, or start a conversation with her.

Usually, he picked the latter.

"Can you believe you were once excited to see it snowing outside?" he asked her while she watched an impressive storm from the window.

A low laugh fled her lips as she sent him a brief glance, surprised by his intrusion. "Snow would seem like a curse now," she agreed.

"I always find myself missing the rain during the winter," he admitted solemnly as he approached her by the window. "Something about the rain is very...pensive. There's a romance about it."

She was quiet for a moment, and he worried that such intimate admissions might still prove awkward for her. But her eyes were full of mirth when she looked up at him again. "Some would call it 'depressing.'"

He smiled down at her in blissful puzzlement. "Now why would they say that?"

She sighed musically and gestured towards the sky with her graceful little hand. "The clouds are crying."

His eyes followed the line of her gaze up to the billowy gray clouds, suddenly struck with pity for them as he thought on her words. Personification of inanimate objects was something Carlisle had grown extremely sensitive to over the years, having used the method as a feeble attempt to cure many lonely nights.

"Say something to cheer them up, Carlisle," Esme's voice inspired.

He thought for a moment, watching the crystal clear droplets scatter over the glass, listening to the soothing percussion of thunder in the distance.

"More tears will bring more to life," he said softly, thoughtfully.

Esme raised her eyebrows. "Don't you think that will encourage the clouds to cry harder?"

He smiled at the idea, impressed by her poetic interpretation. "Perhaps," he conceded. "But they would weep tears of joy now, I should think."

A slim smile spread across her lovely lips as she looked out the watery window frame. They allowed the pounding beat of the rain to fill the silence for a while, listening as it clattered against the glass when the wind shifted direction. It would then fall steady and sure, straight down on the roof like a shower of pins and needles.

Suddenly the endless pulse of rain was interrupted by Esme's sweet voice.

"Do you ever miss being able to cry?"

Her eyes went to him expectantly, and Carlisle felt his heart shrink with grief upon sharing his reply. "All of the time."

Honesty was the only option when it came to Esme.

He went closer to the window and gently gathered the velvet curtain in his hand to pull it further away from the glass. More beams of grayish light spilled into the room, flooding the carpeted floor around their feet.

"Sadness feels so dissatisfying when I am unable to produce tears," he said softly while his eyes jealously followed the freely flowing raindrops. "Ever since the very beginning I've felt this way. I almost miss it more than sleep."

He stared off into the distant shadows of his study then, unable to bear the tauntingly bright storm of cloudy tears just outside the window.

"Yes, I think it is sleep I miss the most," Esme agreed quietly. He looked over in time to see a precious dimple nudge her cheek. "Do you know what else I miss?"

His eyebrows lifted in silent inquiry.

"Drinking water." She bit her lip.

He smiled in pleasant surprise. "I've never really thought about that before. It's been too long for me to remember the taste of water." He tried in vain to recall the way water felt when it filled his mouth – the refreshing, cleansing sensation that slipped down his throat and settled in his stomach. Esme would still have lingering memories of those simple sorts of things while he was doomed to forget them forever.

His eyes furrowed with melancholy as he unlocked the window and reached out to collect the rain in his hand. The cool, clinging feel of the droplets felt good on his skin. As Esme watched him in insatiable curiosity, it felt even more appealing.

"I'm rather ashamed to admit this...but I have trouble imagining anything could have tasted more appealing than blood tastes to me now," he murmured secretively, hesitating before he stared back at her.

Her eyes were undisturbed. "I don't think that's shameful," she said with an honest shake of her head. A lock of her hair fell awkwardly over her shoulder, catching onto her collar, and he felt the swelling urge to tuck it back behind her ear.

It must have been that urge which led him to walk closer to her.

"It is what it is," he said with a distant smile, presenting his rain-filled hand to her curious gaze. The awkward piece of hair that was clinging to her collar slipped down to fall gracefully over her shoulder. The urge to move it back into its place was now gone, replaced with an entirely new urge as Esme's fingers unexpectedly dipped inside his cupped handful of water.

Her fingertips reminded him of soft white rose petals, floating on the surface of a pond. She swirled her fingers in the water, stirring it around, knuckle-deep and carefree.

Her large eyes sparkled with vitality and inquisitiveness as she let tiny beads of rainwater drop from her fingertips, making ripples as they fell.

"They look like diamonds," she breathed mystically, her tempting lips locked in a fascinated smile.

Carlisle felt himself sinking into Esme's voice like a soft, ethereal dream. Long ago, he had only ever desired to see things the way she did, and now he had the distinct feeling that he was able to do just that.

But her eyes were the true gems in the room right then.

As his gaze lifted to hers, he felt the lost pulse of desire renew itself deep in his belly. A quiet strain marked his breath as he lowered his eyes to her deliciously wet fingers. He could not speak.

One of her fingers now hovered over his as she waited for the droplet to fall. Her eyes sparkled with an impish sort of joy as it finally dropped and rolled down the length of his finger into the pool of water in his palm.

Breathless laughter teased his throat, his hand twitching in response to the ticklish streams of water as she repeated the silly ritual for each of his fingers in turn. Her antics were both sensual and playful, her eyes glossy with innocent wonder. He could not help but be disappointed when she finally reached the last, smallest finger on his hand. That one tickled the most.

Esme slowly pulled her fingers away when her game was through, but instead of wiping them dry, she rubbed the residue of rain into her hands, sliding her palms against each other. Her fingertips glided together, leaving her skin to glisten beautifully, and his throat went dry at the sight. Something about her simple, tactile motions pulled at his gut and twisted within it a coil of tense need.

A pout of absent fascination left his lips hanging open like a fish out of water. He quickly tore his gaze away and slipped his hand back out the window, flipping it over to empty it.

His skin now glistened just like hers. For a little while, he turned his hand over in the light, studying the strange shine. Behind his rotating hand, his eyes focused absently on the green grass and winding ivy growing below, and he was struck with a clever excuse by which to touch her.

Reaching over for her slender little wrist, Carlisle took hold of Esme's hand and tugged her gently towards the open window. She looked up at him in shock as he supported her curved palm and held her upright so that the falling rain now filled her hand.

"Why did you do that?" she asked as he slowly carried her overflowing hand through the window and towards his desk.

He stopped just in front of the potted costmary herb growing on his desk and leaned down by her ear to whisper, "It's thirsty."

He could feel the warmth of her grin as she stepped closer to the potted plant, overjoyed to be the one to offer it a drink. Carlisle smiled proudly as he watched her let the water trickle from her hand to the soil. He knew that something as simple as watering a plant would fulfill her hidden maternal instinct.

"What is this plant?" she queried, gently probing its dark leaves.

"Costmary."

She cocked her head. "Why does it smell so familiar to me?"

Carlisle breathed in the scent deeply, and the fresh spice warmed his lungs. "When you were growing up, your farmhouse had a garden out front, did it not?" he asked, remembering the sight of Esme's front yard in Ohio as if he had seen it yesterday.

At first she did not react, but then she nodded slowly.

He came a bit closer to her, hoping to encourage the lost memory before it slipped away. "I recall this scent being in your house when I first came to see you, Esme. I believe your mother used to keep it in her kitchen."

Esme squinted, staring hard at the leafy herb as if it were purposefully keeping the answers from her. "Yes...I think she may have. Costmary, you say?"

"Yes." A wry, reminiscent smile bloomed on his face. "But in my time it was called a 'Bible leaf'," he said with a chuckle.

She wrinkled her forehead in pleasant confusion. "That's a curious name."

"We called it that because we used it to mark the pages in our Bibles while studying," he explained as he picked a leaf from the herb and rubbed it between his fingers to release its aromatic fragrance. "Whenever we became too tired to continue reading, we would crush the end of the leaf and release the scent to help us stay awake."

"Did you often fall asleep while reading your Bible?" she laughed irreverently.

"Not as often as the other boys did, of course," he assured, resisting the urge to wink cheekily at her.

"You obviously don't need help from any old leaf to keep from falling asleep while you read now. So why are you growing costmary in your study?" Her eyes fell to the strange plant again, always seeking answers.

"For pure reminiscence, I suppose," he sighed, slipping his fingers restlessly over the rim of his pockets. "It's a bit silly, but I've started keeping a leaf in each of my books for old time's sake." He shrugged sheepishly.

Esme looked up at him with the dawn in her eyes.

"You cling to your humanity in the most peculiar ways, Carlisle."

He stirred at the slight sprinkle of fondness he thought he could see hidden inside her gaze.

"Edward has helped break many of my more foolish habits," he admitted. "Not a year ago I used to carry a glass of water around the house with me." He attempted to laugh at his own antics, but the sound came out sounding raspy and weak.

Thankfully, Esme seemed too distracted to notice.

"I don't think that's foolish at all. I think it is...endearing." Her mouth formed the word so effortlessly, he almost asked her to repeat it so his ears could savor the beauty of it once more. He thanked the Lord a thousand times that she could not see proof of the flagrant heat beneath his cheeks. His fingers began to snap the leaves off the costmary plant in bashful repetition, hoping she wouldn't notice by his mannerisms alone how nervous she made him.

The heat rushed instantly down to his fingers as he felt her firm touch envelop them, stopping them from fidgeting around the plant. "Carlisle, your fingers will smell like costmary for the rest of the day," she whispered in a motherly way, drawing his fingers away from the pot.

Short of breath, his responding laugh sounded more like a gasp. His fingers could not even wriggle in her grasp when she first touched him, but once he felt the warmth of her hand infuse him to the bone, he simply had to move inside her grasp.

His fingers communicated with hers, writhing within her grip until he had laced their fingers together in a loose, moist tangle. The residue of rain water on their skin betrayed the sensuality of the simple act of holding hands. It was beautiful, twisting, and wet.

The burning sting of costmary filled him with comfort and familiarity while the wondrous perfume of new rain enhanced the sensual slip and slide of their clinging hands.

"Do you ever stop and wonder at how... amazing our hands are?" he found himself asking, his voice supported by the beating rhythm of rain around them.

Esme's soft lips opened slightly, her eyes wide and intense as she watched their hands fold into each other, considering his words.

"When you think of all that they can do, it really is wonderful," he added, carelessly exposing the contents of his overloaded heart.

"It is," she sighed with a nod. Her eyes looked sleepy, flecks of sunset in their mysterious, feminine depths. "It is wonderful."

He thought he could vaguely hear the long lost drumbeat of a thirsting heart, and as it responded to his own, he wondered if Esme felt the same calling, the same significant heat of the moment that he did.

"That is one thing that does not change with the transformation," he whispered, letting go of her hand. The soft slide of moist skin on moist skin as their hands parted sounded louder than a scream to his ears.

"Would you like to take one?" His voice was slightly giddy and too deep as he nodded to the pot of costmary.

"Hm?" she asked, looking dizzy, her eyes glued to his face.

"A 'Bible leaf'," he said as if it were obvious. He pointed to the plant on his desk, feeling the dreadfully crooked weight of a goofy smile fill his lips and cheeks.

"I suppose I could use it while I'm reading," she said. He was relieved to see the same silly sort of expression on her face. "I wouldn't want to fall asleep."

He blinked lazily down at her, leaning closer as he asked her intimately. "You do miss it, though, don't you?"

"Miss what?" she repeated distractedly, her eyes lost again.

"Falling asleep," he whispered in a volume that was entirely inappropriate. Something about the air in the room was too heavy and too sweet for him to care.

"I think I would miss it more... if I could remember what it felt like," she whispered back, her tone telling silent stories of repressed desires and protected honor.

"I do long for it sometimes – to give into sleep, to surrender to a dream," he murmured to the window, as if serenading the rain with his words. He could not even understand the intimacy of what he was saying. All of his words were lost to the sound of the storm, to the rapids of his innermost longings. "To escape the world in bliss for those few precious hours before the sun would rise again."

He felt the fire of poetic verse inflaming his weakened throat, the stressful stirrings of passion poisoning his belly. His dead heart gave birth to a new, resounding beat that echoed in his chest and revitalized his body with the masculine memory of what it felt like to be a hot-blooded man in love.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Esme's breathless voice trailed off, rich and rasping.

"It is appealing, isn't it?" he demanded oh so gently, stepping directly in front of her, determined that nothing should touch her but his shadow.

Her face filled with tremulous fear in the dark, like a child locked in the confessional who did not want to share her sins with the pastor.

Suddenly, she squeezed her eyes shut and curled her little hands into fists, as if she were trying to ward off evil spirits that had infected her mind. "We shouldn't wish for what we cannot have," she said, feeble desperation drowning out her sweet voice.

"That is true," he sighed, reminded of the wrongness of his own desire to possess _her_. His fingers were writhing with the need to touch her, his tongue caressing the roof of his own mouth in preparation to kiss her.

Fed up with suppressing it all, Carlisle straightened before her, emboldened with the readiness to end his suffering. "But do you believe it is possible, that sometimes the things we wish for are already in our grasp?"

Her eyes flashed, reflecting the rain in a war of scarlet and amber. "Yes, sometimes I do wonder."

His implied meaning shimmered back at him, fully understood.

Like a curse, he could not ignore the sweet, grasping heat in his lower belly when he looked into her eyes. It felt like someone had held a piece of silk over a fire then dragged it slowly across his midriff.

"Esme..."

He sighed her name once, raggedly, and the thunder uttered one last warning from a distance.

His body was on fire when he caught the sweet evidence of her love for him, written on the air. Thick pangs of helpless desire beat him to the core, demanding more of him than he could possibly permit. One moment he was overcome with the need to know the inside of her mouth as well as the inside of her womb... and the next his body was aching for something entirely... opposite.

The sensation caught him by surprise, like the twist of a live snake in the grasp of someone who thought he had seized a branch.

His instincts felt sharpened while his judgment felt muted. Common sense was thrust underwater, drowned out by a pure, zealous thirst.

A thirst for human blood.


	31. A Different Kind of Touch

**A Different Kind of Touch**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 52: Slightly Incredible" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

As the scent of human blood swirled viciously through the room, Carlisle was reduced to a fearful mess of nerves. His panic was secretly just as violent as Esme's was, but his long-practiced control was the only thing helping him keep his head above the surface.

Esme stood there, helpless, her breathing coming harder and harder as she greedily sought out the source of the scent. He hated to see her this way, no more than an animal running purely on instinct. When she was desperate, so was he. He wanted to help her – and he knew exactly what he _had _to do – but for a terrifying moment or two, his body refused to move.

It was like having a sharpened sword waiting ready in his hands, but having no courage to use it.

Edward's presence was what brought him back into action.

Carlisle thanked God for the boy as he bolted into the room. His breath was held steady and his eyes were dark, but he was more in control than Carlisle had ever seen him. It was just the inspiration he needed.

"Run!" the word ripped suddenly from his paralyzed throat. "Esme, for God's sake, run!" he repeated in terror, but she would not move. "Edward, take her!" Carlisle begged shamelessly, shoving her into Edward's arms as he steered them towards the door.

Edward's eyes widened in shock, his bated breath spilling involuntarily as he choked on his words. "But what if she_—_"

"Son, please!" Carlisle cried out, and the pure desperation in his voice was startling. The sight of his beloved Esme, frozen stiff with her lovely eyes glazed over and her throat snarling helplessly, was shredding his heart to bits. "Go now before it is too late!"

He thrust the door open, and sheets of torrential rain stormed the study, flooding the carpet under their feet. Edward did not waste a second's time before he gripped Esme's arms and dragged her outside into the muddy grass.

Carlisle's chest felt brittle as he watched Esme's arms flail, crying incoherently in Edward's forceful embrace. His feet were ready to run after them at full speed, but he knew he had to drive the human off their property first.

But how to do it?

With all his thoughts flying frantically about in his head, Carlisle could hardly place coherent value on a single one. But in the depths of his panicked mind, there appeared to be one obvious solution. One ridiculous but obvious solution.

Scare the human away.

The notion filled him with disgust, but for Esme's sake, it had to be done.

He slipped outside onto the porch, immediately soaked by the downpour as he moved around the side of the house. He peeked quickly around the corner to be sure the coast was clear before rushing into the woods at the side of the yard.

The sweet blood was coming from the road at the top of the hill around the front of the house. Just the sight of the old Chartercrest mansion usually discouraged people from walking past. This person, however, was either very brave or very ignorant of the rumors associated with their estate.

Carlisle slinked through the thick trees, moving closer to the road without making a sound. The rain helped him pass undetected, both by muting the sounds of his movement and by hiding him in the fog. As a precaution, he still held his breath as he edged closer to the sound of footsteps on the side of the road.

His ears could make out the sounds of Esme's distress somewhere far off behind him, and his hands started to tremble with the pressure to think fast.

Peering around the edge of a tree trunk, Carlisle got his first glimpse of the pedestrian who trudged through their part of the woods. It was a male teenager, no older than Edward, wearing a black coat and rain boots. As he was dressed appropriately for the weather and carrying a duffel filled with clothes on his back, Carlisle could only guess the boy must have been preparing to travel a long distance.

As much as Carlisle hated the way he had chosen to frighten the boy off, it was the only way he could protect Esme without revealing himself or putting them all in danger.

Before he could second guess his decision, Carlisle took in a deep breath through the mouth and unleashed a ferocious growl.

The boy's footsteps stopped immediately on the road, settling in the damp gravel.

Taking advantage of the silence, Carlisle repeatedly mimicked the sounds of every forest beast he could think of, hoping the boy would be smart enough to head in the opposite direction. If the Chartercrest spirits weren't enough to scare him, hopefully the sounds of man-eating wolves and bears would.

He felt like such a fool, scaring some poor innocent young man away by growling and snarling like an untamed animal in the middle of the woods. But in his panic he was forced to rely on desperate measures.

The throat-rattling noises Carlisle was making felt so unnatural to him. If he could control himself, he avoided such feral sounds at all costs. It was strange enough to hear them coming from Esme and Edward once in a while. But when he took full advantage of the range his own throat was capable of, it was even wilder.

Within seconds of regaining his composure, the traveling teenager bolted in the other direction, following the road to the other side of the hill where safer territory awaited.

Carlisle resisted the feeling of selfish pride in favor of relief. He had not a moment to spare before getting back to Esme. She would be needing his help more than anyone right now, and he was going to be there for her.

Now that the human had fled the property, Carlisle guessed they had maybe five or six minutes before the scent dissipated enough for Esme to breathe properly without temptation. Unfortunately, the sweet effects of the blood still tingled in his nose as he ran. The rain would help to wash away the smell a bit faster, though it would probably still take a while. At least they had something on their side.

As Carlisle raced through the woods toward the house, he squinted through the rain, looking around for where Edward had taken Esme. It was easy enough to smell them nearby, but their scents were both fainter than normal from the wind and rain.

As his eyes passed rapidly over the back property, Carlisle suddenly noticed Edward struggling with Esme in the middle of the lake, the water already nearly up to her shoulders. All she had to do was go underneath the surface, but she kept defending herself against Edward's efforts.

She was trying so hard to come back in the direction of the house.

Carlisle broke into a desperate run for the lake, fully prepared to take Esme by surprise and push her under the water by force if he had to.

His legs felt heavy but strong as he battled the choppy waves of water to reach her side. Beneath the lake, seaweed gripped at his ankles, trying to stop him from reaching her. Every gust of wind brought a burst of pin-like raindrops to ravage his face. But he kept right on going, unfazed by all but the sight of Esme's small, struggling body in the water.

Just like when he had to growl to scare away the passing human, Carlisle felt the same feeling of guilt as he crept up behind Esme, knowing he might have to drown her by using force.

If only she would stop struggling so much.

Edward looked desperately to his father from a distance away, his pleading eyes blurred out by the rain.

He tried once again to get Esme to go under the water, cussing and yelling at the top of his lungs. Carlisle thought the severity of Edward's admonishment might scare Esme into following his orders, but instead it had the entirely opposite effect.

She cried out above the sounds of the storm, like a wild banshee in the middle of the lake. With a mighty heave, she tossed Edward over the surface of the water as if he weighed nothing at all. Then she turned around, spread out her arms, and began swimming swiftly toward the house.

Carlisle started to panic again, knowing that if Edward was disoriented for even a few seconds, he would likely have to protect Esme on his own.

But Carlisle couldn't let her know that _he_ was there either, or else he might suffer the same fate as Edward if he got in her way...

From a distance he could see Esme's arms waving blindly out in front of her, as if she could not see inches past her own face. Her expression was heartbreakingly disoriented, and though her eyes were wide open, they were dull and unresponsive to any of her surroundings. But to his greatest surprise, her breathing was shallow, as if she were trying her very hardest to not take in the scents around her. Despite her obvious temptation, it appeared she was making every effort not to be consumed by it.

Carlisle watched her every unpredictable move from a careful distance as she moved in the direction of the lake shore. His tentative plan was to attack her from behind once she passed him and bring her back under the water when she was least expecting it. But his hasty planning was disrupted when Esme suddenly shifted her general direction.

She was not going back to the house. She was not even going towards the shore of the lake. She was heading straight for _him_.

Caught off guard, Carlisle did not know whether to open his arms in peaceful welcome, or to take advantage of her decisive path by grabbing hold of her and immediately shoving her under the water. Yet as she came closer, she looked so delicate, like a helpless glass doll just barely floating above the water's surface. Tears of rain clung to her large, delirious eyes. Her face looked paler than ever, and her entire body was trembling in fear and uncertainty.

She looked so lost.

With a jolt Carlisle realized that Esme thought she _was _heading home after all.

If she was heading toward him, did that mean she thought of him as her home?

Touched in the very depths of his soul, Carlisle trusted his strongest instinct and opened his arms wide in peaceful welcome. He would not push her under the surface, and he would not attack her by surprise. His heart was speaking to him in such a tender voice that he had no choice but to obey it.

Her dress was like wet paper pasted all around her small, shivering body. Her lustrous curls fell flat against her neck, clinging to her skin in dark, slick tendrils. Her face was sparkling with raindrops, and her lips were soft purple from the chill, and she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen as she walked blindly into his open embrace and pressed her face dependently into his chest.

There was no line between his disbelief and his relief in the moment she surrendered to his protection. He could barely believe he had her in his arms, even more that she had come to him with no force and not a word to sway her. She had come to him by her own will.

"I have you now, Esme. I have you, and I will not let you go," he whispered above her head, knowing she might not have understood, but at least he could give her the comfort of a sympathetic voice.

In his arms, she felt fragile but not restless. Although she was quivering from head to foot, she seemed content to be trapped against him. With one hand, Carlisle used tentative strength to press her head down further while he brought his own face level with hers. Her eyes blinked against the rain in confusion as her tremulous chin touched the water.

Sensing no signs that she was about to move away from him, Carlisle enclosed his arms tightly around her waist and whispered one final word of reassurance before he pulled her gently beneath the surface.

Carlisle kept his eyes on Esme's face at all times, alert to her every emotion. She showed no outright signs of panic as he pulled her down a bit deeper, but her eyes snapped closed the instant she felt the water fill them.

The depths below his feet looked ever more inviting in the silence of the cool green waters. Tenderly enforcing his grip on her body, Carlisle continued to sink along with her to the bottom of the lake. The stern pressure of the deeper waters enveloped him harshly, lovingly. It was painful to be so alert while Esme was in such a trance...and it introduced so many tempting possibilities.

Her beautiful face was doll-like, impassive, as if she were simply in a tranquil sleep. Beneath the silent waters, the tender whispers of Carlisle's heart grew louder and harder to ignore. _'Touch her'_, it told him, _'Now is your chance to touch her in any way you please... She will not even remember...'_

With only the most sincere intentions, Carlisle answered the pleading voice of his heart and lifted several fingers to weave through the floating strands of her hair. They felt so fine between his fingers, like threads of silk – but the feeling was not enough to sate his desire.

Closeness was all he wanted. More closeness was all he would need to be satisfied.

Just an innocent touch, he decided, would be enough. So he tugged her closer and gently stroked his cheek against hers, letting her know that he was still with her. His eyes closed as their skin passed, the velvety sensation dulled by the cold water. He wanted warm skin against warm skin, with nothing to interrupt it. Like the time she had kissed his cheek.

Could he do the same to her now? Would she even fight him if he tried?

The strangest sensation overcame him, like a staggeringly strong hand squeezing his heart. In the deep, dark privacy of Lake Cordial's waters, Carlisle shyly touched his lips to the corner of Esme's soft mouth.

The kiss, if it could even be called a kiss, lasted barely a fleeting moment, yet it raised the temperature of the lake by several significant degrees. Small groups of clueless fish swished past him in excitement, startled by the sight of a strange man kissing a woman in their home.

The currents of the water brushed against his back as if encouraging him to do it again. But when Carlisle pulled back and looked into her peaceful face, he could not bear to take advantage of her a second time, no matter how gentle and harmless his advances were.

This was no time to be selfish.

When his feet finally touched the soft floor of the lake, he moved into a kneeling position, gathering Esme's body snugly against his lap. He felt her bury herself even closer to him, and his hands on her back tightened gladly in response.

His hand rubbed gently up and down her back as she rested her head on his shoulder. Where such an embrace above land would have been awkward, their tangled limbs floated lightly in the water, pleasantly weightless as they held onto each other. The ambiance around them was almost ethereal in a murky sort of way. It felt secret and dim, and somehow calming to have their senses muted.

After a minute or two of stillness, Esme finally seemed to be regaining her full consciousness. The weight of her head on his shoulder lifted, and she drew back to look into his eyes. In her gaze he could see the wild green shadows of the lake reflecting back to him, and her natural curiosity made the colors even brighter. As relieved as he was to see her gleaming vivacity restored at last, there was still something missing from her wide, searching eyes.

Absently, she reached up to let her fingers explore the lines of his face. He stared unwaveringly at her while she studied every feature, as if making sure he was really here and not just a mirage fashioned by the gloomy green depths of the lake.

As her eyes drifted across his face, Carlisle found himself imagining what it would be like to have her look at him this way for the rest of his life. There was something so honest and open in the way Esme looked at him that no one else could match. The unseen path her eyes left behind was warm and soothing. It was as if she could see right beneath his skin and into his soul.

When Esme's traveling gaze fluttered down to his neck, Carlisle felt a familiar heat gather around his collar. The fabric felt particularly tight around his shoulders and throat whenever Esme's gaze happened to land there. He somehow felt that her curiosity blossomed ten-fold when her eyes dipped below his chin, that there was something of even greater interest in the area where several buttons and a necktie usually lay without notice.

Following the line of her sight, Carlisle suddenly realized what it was that preoccupied Esme's attention. The heat in his neck spread quickly to his face as his fingers fumbled to hide the chained golden cross that had floated out from under his collar.

Once the cross was hidden again, Esme's eyes returned to his face. She tipped her head to one side and blinked questioningly at him, as if she expected an explanation for why they were here under the lake, of all places.

A sudden, scary thought pricked Carlisle's mind. Perhaps she did not even know what had prompted him to bring her here.

That could make for an interesting talk when they got to the surface.

Staring longingly skyward, he noticed the rain had settled down while they waited. The surface of the lake glinted with gray and blue streaks as the waves rocked slowly back and forth. He felt the light tugging of Esme's hand on his sleeve, and he knew it was time to try and resurface.

Cradling her body across his arms, he rose up from the bottom of the lake and propelled himself towards the reflected sky above. The water splashed victoriously around them both as they broke freely into the air.

Carlisle shook the water out of his ears and hair, looking hastily around to be sure that nothing looked out of the ordinary. He was impressed by Esme's efforts, noticing that she still faithfully held her breath while she, too, glanced warily around.

Testing the scent of the air, Carlisle drank in a deep breath and detected only the faintest tendrils of human scent, having been long washed away by the misty rain.

The air is clean now," he notified Esme at once, not wanting her to strain any longer. "You can breathe."

His words brought a look of pure relief as she let in a generous breath of the air she had been craving. But her pretty face distorted in agony as she began to cough up the mouthfuls of lake water she had swallowed from before.

"You're alright now," he soothed, stroking his hand across her back as she threatened to sob in frustration. "You're alright."

His heart twisted in pity as he watched her cling desperately to his shoulders, coughing violently until she had emptied her lungs at last. Her beautiful eyes closed in exhaustion, every one of her bright features grayed out in despair. He hated to see her this way.

Unable to resist, Carlisle tenderly cupped her head in his hand and encouraged her to rest her cheek on his shoulder again. He could disguise the gesture as one of comfort for her benefit, but secretly, he missed the feeling of her face buried in the side of his neck. Feeling her fast, light little breaths on his damaged skin gave him a private peace of mind.

He leaned his head over hers, securing her there in case she tried to move. She did not realize that just the feel of her so close to him gave him the very strength he craved.

Almost immediately, Carlisle spotted Edward on the grass by the side of the lake, standing under a cluster of tall weeping willows.

As the water grew shallower around him, Carlisle felt awkward taking sloshing steps toward the banks of the lake. His clothes clung to his skin, unpleasantly soaked from neck to foot. But as long as Esme was in his arms, his entire body was numb except for the places where she touched him. His shoulders, his throat, his hands, and his chest all felt overwhelmingly flushed.

His feet finally met the lush edge of the lake where the water met a strip of mud and pebbles. He carried Esme over to the protective canopy of willows and set her carefully down in the grass. He winced inwardly as she crossed her arms in front of her translucent blouse, reminded of the last awkward time they had gotten caught in the rain together.

She looked as if she were about to try and speak, but another coughing fit interrupted her. Carlisle glanced worriedly over at his son, and Edward read his thoughts of concern.

_We should have her drink something as soon as possible._

Edward nodded once, jumped up, and snatched the nearest innocent bird from the tree above them, handing it casually to Esme.

In any other circumstances, Edward's hasty reflexes would have been humorous, but right now Carlisle only felt that his son's quick thinking was a blessing.

Esme sucked the poor bird dry before Edward could even have the time to find another.

"Any better?" Edward asked, pretending not to look so surprised.

Without hesitation, she shook her head, and Carlisle prompted Edward to find something else for her.

"Try these," he said, dropping a pair of baby swallows into her skirt. While she was sipping away at their blood, Edward leaned closer to his father and whispered in awe-filled delight. "I don't believe it... She didn't run after him."

_I know. I can't believe it either._

Esme's head jerked up when she heard Edward's whisper, her eyes demanding answers. "What—What are you talking about?"

Carlisle took a deep breath and let his hand settle on her shoulder until she faced him. "You did it, Esme," he said proudly. "You resisted."

Her face changed when she took in his words, her eyes reclaiming some of the beautiful brightness they had lost.

"I didn't kill anyone," she whispered half to herself, her voice filled with disbelief and hidden excitement. "I didn't kill anyone this time..."

"You didn't harm anyone, Esme," Edward confirmed, smiling wryly at Carlisle over his shoulder. "It's true"

She turned her marvelous eyes onto Carlisle and shuddered slightly. "You saved me," she said to him. The sound of her breathless voice as she deemed him her hero made his heart sing, but he could not take the credit.

"No, Esme." He shook his head. "You never once tried to go after the blood. You ran away. You came to me." His lips broke into a wondering smile as her eyes widened in surprise. "You saved yourself."

******-}0{-**

Carlisle sometimes caught himself wondering what Esme had thought when he told her this. She had little reaction from the outside when he said it to her, but in her eyes he thought he spotted a glimmer of strange interest.

_"I saved myself," _she'd whispered. She had a habit of whispering his words back to him, repeating everything he said as if it were something to marvel at.

He hoped that one day she would repeat much more intimate phrases when he whispered them to her... _if _it ever came to this.

They had something special now. He could not deny this. He never had denied that deep, hidden quality they possessed when they were both together. It was not that they worked so seamlessly as a team when in dire circumstances, but rather that they seemed to depend equally upon the other, each for different reasons.

He took advantage of their dependence on each other by spending more time with her whenever he could, offering to walk with her off their property towards the nearest populated village. At first she was hesitant, but with gentle coaxing and encouragement, she finally accepted his offer.

He held her hand a little tighter each time he took her through the forest.

One day she asked him to take her back before they even made it off the property. He had to persuade her to walk just a little bit further before she was confident enough that she could handle the growing scent of humans.

With some patience, experience, and occasional small achievements, it became easier for Esme to travel a little bit further every day.

It was a Saturday when they finally made it to the other edge of the forest. Carlisle could tell that Esme had been craving the sight that lay beyond the thicket of trees. Beams of light scattered around them, inviting them to peek through to the village that lay beyond, but she had never been quite ready until that Saturday afternoon.

The air was still thick and moist from that morning's rain, muting the scent of blood in her favor. He stopped in front of the trees, closed his fingers firmly around her hand, and pointed across the shallow valley to the houses that were nestled amongst the hills on the other side.

"You're so close, Esme. Look how close you are," he told her in hushed tones, sharing in her secret success.

Esme looked out at the houses in wonder. On a wet Saturday afternoon everyone was in their homes, moving about with the lights on and the curtains pulled back for her to see. It could not have been more perfect.

He hovered behind her, setting both hands on her slender shoulders. "One day soon you'll be able to join them again, just as I have," he reminded her, watching as her lips quirked into a shy but satisfied smile.

He looked down in surprise as her hand rose up to lie on top of his, and a tiny twinge of joy prickled pleasantly in his stomach.

"I can't believe it's finally happening," she murmured to the wind.

Carlisle truly believed he had never been more proud of anyone in his life. He had watched Esme's confidence blossom from a meek little sprout in the ground to a rich and bursting flower.

"All it took was a little courage," he said, rubbing his thumb absently over the back of her shoulder blade, "knowing you could do something you thought was impossible."

Her head tilted slightly in thought. "I guess I always knew deep down that it had to be possible. At least, I hoped it would be."

He breathed in her lush, flowery fragrance and nodded solemnly to himself. "Even the smallest hope can breed the strongest faith."

On that Saturday night, Carlisle returned to his study to write about Esme's success in his journal. He remembered a time when he used to write only about his own successes, but now Esme was the main character in the story of his own life. Glancing back through the pages he had most recently written, he could not help but smirk at how often her name appeared – at least once nearly every other line, sometimes more.

There was one page in his journal where he experimented writing her name in different colors of ink in the margins on the top of the page. Not one iota of space was left on the paper; every place was filled with a capital "E" or an "s" or an "m" or a lowercase "e."

Sometimes when he ran out of ink (which was often), he would settle to draw the letters of her name on his skin with his finger. He liked to write it on the back of his wrist, on the inside of his arm, on the flat part of his stomach.

He wrote her name in midair. He wrote it on the surface of his bath water. He carved it into his sculptures.

Because he wanted _Esme _to be everywhere.

******-}0{-**

During the weeks approaching Easter, Carlisle found himself overwhelmed by memories of his past. The time had always been somber in his youth, seeming to take his appetite for all things away. Naturally his appetite for Esme had increased to replace it. If his heart hungered, it hungered only for her. He was content to watch her while she hunted without sparing a drop of blood for himself. Before he knew it, her eyes were glowing a tentative gold beneath her long lashes. Somehow, he felt that the accomplishment was in part his own as well as hers.

He had led her on the right path towards self-confidence and faith in her own capabilities. Esme was powerful in so many ways. For so long she spent her days wondering if she had any sort of power at all, until the day she was able to unleash it at just the right time.

It was all because of _him_ that she was able to do this.

When he took her out to hunt, all he could do was watch her, admire her, drink in the sight of her, lust after her quietly in his heart. He banished this lust at every corner, yet it crept up on him in the middle of the day just as often as the dead of night. Such lust was not truly a lust for her body so much as a lust for her companionship, a symbiosis of souls.

He daydreamed about loving her softly, under blinding rays of sunlight. Just as often, he thought about loving her harshly, while beams of moonlight grazed his bare back like the loving hands of a mother.

He thought of how many times he wished to feel Esme's hands touching him everywhere. He thought of cradling her body to his, nuzzling the secret places on her that he had always longed to explore. He sometimes found himself overwhelmed by dreams, bewitched powerless against a ravaging onslaught of need. His innocence blushed at the details his imagination offered. Her breasts resting against his naked chest when she lay beside him in his bed. Her body splayed out on the rug in his study – soft, lavish, with perfect curves, all peach and rose colored under the flicker of firelight, waiting for him. The elegant arch of her neck a perfect hiding place for his lips; her thigh a supple pillow for his cheek...

"You haven't had much time to hunt lately, have you?" her voice interrupted his brazen thoughts.

The image of her in nothing but her skin faded guiltily from his mind as he whipped around to face her over his shoulder, both relieved and disappointed to find her fully clothed from neck to toe. His breath cut short around the simple answer. "No."

But of course the very reason he had no time or will to hunt was because nothing could satisfy him but _her _flesh.

She looked down awkwardly at his blunt response. "Well, maybe when you come back from the hospital later we can..."

_...make love on the front porch in the pouring rain?_

His mind was always finishing Esme's sentences for her these days.

"Oh, I..." He stuttered over his words, rendered speechless by her expectant gaze and even more by the lingering images of what making love on the porch in the rain might be like. "I don't know if I—"

"It's alright," Esme quickly interjected, the pain in her voice so much more than noticeable. "You don't have the time. I understand."

He despised when she pretended not to be sad. She was so terrible at it.

"It's not that," he tried to assure her, but it was no use. He pushed his hair back from his forehead, stressed by her overbearing attention as he tried to think of a reasonable excuse.

Then, a faint sound, like a crackling fire in the neighboring room met his ears. The mysterious noise grew louder, then softer, then louder again, coming from the left side of the room.

"Do you hear that?" he asked her, wondering if he had gone mad. Usually Esme was the first to notice strange sounds in the room.

"Yes," she said with an eager nod. "A kind of...crackling sound..."

A louder crackle filled the room, coming unmistakably from the window, and it caused them both to turn abruptly. Carlisle rushed excitedly to the window and lifted it open to find a small blue robin's egg nestled amongst the twigs in the flower box.

Esme gave an adorable squeak of a gasp at the sight as Carlisle moved in closer to examine the egg.

"It's going to hatch," he whispered, in case the sound of his voice would frighten the young bird.

His fingers crept slightly closer to the abandoned nest, starting to pick away at the twigs and leaves that partially covered his view. Out of the corner of his eye, Carlisle saw Esme preparing to lift herself up onto the edge of the window so that she could get a closer look. He almost attempted to pull her back...but then he realized there was no real reason to do it, other than having an excuse to touch her.

So he decided to do it anyway.

His arm slid around her waist from behind to prevent her from falling out the window. Not that Esme wasn't the epitome of grace. He was just concerned...and he wanted a reason to hold her.

When one really gave it some thought, there was nothing truly spectacular about holding a woman around the waist. There was nothing blatantly intimate about this part of her body, and yet it somehow became very intimate in his head. It was the center of her, the place where each slender curve settled into a perfect hourglass shape. It seemed it was meant for a man's fingers to grip, for his arm to rest around. Holding her there, more than anywhere else on her body, made him feel strong, gallant, in control.

If she was his wife, he imagined, he could be doing this to her all of the time. When she stepped down from the shaky bottom stair in the cellar, when she was painting at her easel in the morning, when she was watching a rain storm through the window, when she stepped out of her bathtub... he could hold her around the waist just like this.

Oh, that thought was so dreadfully appealing.

Of course as soon as the slightest hint of intimacy entered the picture, Edward did, too.

"Leave it alone," his prompt, scholarly voice interjected as he joined them at the window. Carlisle pulled his hand back in surprise when Edward swatted it away from the hatching egg. "Come on, now! Just because you're a doctor doesn't mean you can fool around with it."

Carlisle glared in defense. "I was just going to—"

"Let nature take its own bloody course for once, Carlisle," Edward sighed with a roll of his eyes.

"I was the one who heard it in the first place," Carlisle argued timidly.

Edward just ignored him. "I can't see!"

At once, Esme's voice put an abrupt end to their quarreling. "Oh, will you two be quiet?"

Carlisle secretly suppressed a smile at the maternal tone in her voice. Whenever Esme admonished, she was stern but loving all the same. She always veiled her teasing by ordering them about when they misbehaved.

"I don't think it likes us," Edward said in disappointment.

Esme narrowed her eyes at him and held his arm back. "Hush."

Once again, Carlisle covered his mouth to conceal a grin. Edward shifted irritably as he overheard his father's amused thoughts.

At that moment, the crackling egg split from top to bottom, and the head of a baby bird began struggling to peek out.

It gave a small, curious chirp as it took its first glance at the outside world. Carlisle chuckled jubilantly at the miraculous sight, sacrificing his grip on Esme's waist to free both his hands so he could help the bird break free of its shell.

Edward, no longer wanting to dictate what a doctor could or couldn't touch, quickly became just as awestruck by the baby robin as his father. He shamelessly joined Carlisle in laughter, watching him help the tiny bird by picking bits of the shell away from its twitching head.

"Oh my goodness," Esme breathed from above.

Carlisle felt his throat tighten, almost forgetting that she had been watching the whole scene in uncharacteristic silence. He looked up at her, eager to share her joy in what they had accidentally uncovered together.

Her eyes shone brightly back at him, filled with blazing affection.

He wondered how he was going to make it out the door that day, or any day for that matter. Every time he left the house it got harder. Especially with a baby bird hatching on their window sill, and Esme looking like _that,_ with her soft pink gown, sitting sweetly beside it.

Carlisle had to battle with Edward through a vain storm of thoughts before he finally set foot in the foyer against his will.

Esme chatted on and on about how much the little bird would miss him while he was away, and Carlisle wondered if that was a secret way for her to tell him that she would miss him as well.

He smiled painfully at her as he adjusted his collar in the mirror, hating that she always looked ten times as beautiful when he was about to step out the door.

She bit her lip and grinned playfully back at him, rays of hidden hope dancing in her fiery orange eyes.

As Carlisle turned to say his goodbyes and share an embrace of parting, he listened over her shoulder to the soft chirping of the newly hatched bird inside the house.

Esme stroked her hands up his back before letting him go – a most innocent mistake. Bless her, she just did not realize that every extra caress she gave him made it harder for him to leave.

His final glance turned into more of a stare as he lost himself in her mercilessly haunting gaze. And just before he left, he felt a familiar echo of that bottomless ache which he knew could only be cured with the sealing of her body to his own.

******-}0{-**

After a stressful shift at the hospital, Carlisle was most eager to come home and have some time to himself. He knew that Edward had planned to take Esme out to the abandoned conservatory on the far side of the property. It was one of Edward's better ideas, and Carlisle had to admit he was somewhat annoyed that he had not thought of it himself. It was about time Esme got her talented hands on that place. He was confident that she would make it look better than it had when it was first built.

He dawdled around in his study for a few minutes, wandering aimlessly in a place he knew like the back of his head. The room looked so deliciously cluttered. During the spring and summer it was always like this. When he spent his sunny days inside, he had nothing better to do than rearrange and sort his collections. Stacks of books were stuffed into all four corners of the room, the carpet was studded with bits of parchment paper, and various pictures and ornaments were left on every surface and every seat. Carlisle rather liked the way his study looked when it was a mess. When everything was organized it only seemed to emphasize how much of a mess _he_ was. But when the room around him was completely cluttered, his thoughts, in comparison, seemed to be at peace.

Carlisle made his way swiftly up the spiral staircase in his study and opened the hidden passage to the place where he kept his paintings. He had to move the artistic evidence to a place where Esme would not look to find it. Her curiosity was a threat to all of his secrets, but he loved her all the more for it.

The distant chime of Esme's voice as she spoke softly to Edward outside was the perfect inspiration for Carlisle as he worked on some more of his painting. He had decided to name it "Lake Cordial by Moonlight" as it depicted the backyard lake under a full moonlit night sky. Each color and stroke he had used to make the painting had been done deliberately, coming straight from his heart. He used soul-like colors to shed his emotions, and sometimes to enhance them. When he was feeling particularly passionate, it was never easy to paint the tiny, painstaking details on canvas. On the nights when he was unable to keep his hands from trembling, he instead sat back under the light of a few candles and simply stared the painting, immersing himself in the calming scene. He wondered whether Esme would approve of it. He was still growing in his ability to use a paintbrush, but he secretly hoped that when she finally saw the painting, she would be impressed with his progress.

After all, she was the one who had taught him. He would have never even been inspired to paint if it weren't for her.

The painting itself was coming along. He had started over from scratch more than four times so far since he began the project, but every time he started again, he discovered something new. With every stroke of the paintbrush, he unleashed a new secret. There was magic embedded deep within the bristles, a magic only a true artist could wield.

It was a cathartic process. The most wonderful part about painting was that it truly became a kind of exercise for the soul, just like his writing. Painting, while more visually stimulating than writing, just allowed him to scratch the surface of his feelings rather than become too deeply invested in them. Painting was a way to escape to another world. He could create a new world on the canvas, using only the colors he had stolen and the visions inside his mind.

After a few peaceful hours, Carlisle set down the paintbrush just as he heard Edward coming back to the house. Carlisle closed up the hidden passage with the sliding bookcase and made his way down the spiral steps two at a time, eager to see if Edward's return would bring news of Esme's work on the conservatory.

He glanced down to see Edward standing by the door to the study with a grin on his face that would shame a Cheshire cat.

"I told her the Lotus flower story," he stated.

Carlisle's breath hitched.

"She really enjoyed it," Edward added cheekily, hardly able to hold back his laughter as his father stared ahead, bemused.

"I don't want you to tell her any more 'stories,' Edward," Carlisle whispered wearily as he distractedly rearranged the contents of his desk drawer. "At least not without my permission."

Edward pursed his lips and strolled casually around the doctor's desk before slipping a crumbled note out from beneath a pile of books. He cocked an eyebrow as he scanned the intimate lines of peacock blue writing. "What about something like _this_? This might be a story she'd like to hear..."

Carlisle's heart plummeted at the thought of Esme reading anything that he had written to her in those letters. He snatched the letter out of Edward's hand, flustered beyond reason even though he knew his son was only teasing him.

_Do not make threats like that, Edward_._ Not even in jest._

He gave Edward a steely glare before folding and tucking the note safely back into his desk drawer with the others he had chosen to keep.

Edward put his arms up in surrender. "Fine, but we both know you're just prolonging the inevitable."

Carlisle blanched. "What do you mean?"

"I don't need to explain Esme's insatiable curiosity to you," Edward sighed heavily, lowering his voice. "She's going to find them sooner or later. Your notes. Your paintings. Your journal." He pointed in the general direction of each as he said it, and Carlisle's eyes widened in fright at every item Edward mentioned. "And who knows? One day Esme may walk in here and find your _heart_ just sitting there on the desk, free for all to see."

Carlisle hissed softly in defense, gathering up anything remotely private that was still on the surface of his desk so he could hide it all.

Edward only chuckled. For someone so naturally composed in every situation, Carlisle was a frantic mess when it came to hiding his feelings from Esme.

Esme was the same way.

Edward was about to ask Carlisle why it still made him so anxious, but the sound of Esme's footsteps drawing near hushed them both at once. They both froze still as she came into the house, dropped her books somewhere, then ran upstairs to change.

"Help me take the paint cans outside," Edward requested, shrugging in the direction of the hall.

Carlisle followed without a thought, his ears still preoccupied by the sweet sounds of Esme humming to herself as she put on new stockings and shoes.

With a goofy smile, he absently helped Edward gather at least twenty cans of white paint from the kitchen and carry them to the front porch.

_I don't even remember ordering these,_ Carlisle thought when he set the last can down.

Edward rolled his eyes. "That's because I bought them in town two days ago." His voice lowered to an undecipherable whisper. "Esme feels guilty when she asks you for things."

Carlisle felt a sinking feeling in his gut. He had told Esme so many times that she could come ask him for anything she wanted, and still she felt guilty?

He wanted to ask Edward why she felt that way, but the boy was already picking at the lids of the cans to inspect the quality of the paint inside.

"They sure don't give us our money's worth, do they?" he laughed bitterly, experimentally dipping a fat paintbrush into the stark white paint to watch it cling like glue.

Sighing his resignation, Carlisle stole away into his study again to be sure that all of his desk drawers were locked. Usually he was not so paranoid about protecting his personal belongings, but after Edward's harmless teasing, he was feeling a bit queasy knowing all of his notes and journals were left out for anyone to stumble across.

Just the thought of Esme reading the most recent pages of his journal made him quiver. He rushed to the back of his desk to find the book in question, holding it between his hands unsteadily for a few moments to be sure that its weight was the same as the day before. No one had ripped any pages out, he thought to himself as he counted them. He brought the book cover up to his nose to investigate any change in scent, but he found none. There were no finger markings on the binding, no tears in the pages, not a scratch on it at all.

He breathed in relief and slid the journal back into his top drawer, locking it with the little silver key. The key was usually placed inside an antique snuff box that he kept on the mantel. But today, just to take extra precaution, he slipped the box into his pocket for safekeeping.

Outside he could hear Esme and Edward talking.

"You're going to paint _all_ of the windows white?"

"Well, it would look horrendous if we left half of them black, wouldn't you say?"

Carlisle took a deep breath, taking in the last moments of privacy before he readied himself to greet Esme. Each time they were apart it felt like forever since he had last seen her, and each time he got to see her again, it became more exciting.

He slipped quietly out the door from his study and walked around the house to see Esme standing in front of the drawing room window, paintbrush already in hand.

"I sort of like them black," Edward mused, still staring critically at the unpainted windows. Carlisle disagreed entirely, helpless to take Esme's side in everything.

"The entire house will brighten up if just the windows are painted white," she said, her business-like demeanor utterly endearing. "You'll see."

"I'm sure it will," Carlisle interjected with a grin.

He felt a bit foolish just standing there in the grass, staring at her with a helpless smile on his face. She smiled hesitantly in return, her stance becoming slightly nervous as she adjusted her paintbrush in her hand and continued stroking up the sides of the window. Every so often her knee would bend, and her ankle would lift the tiniest bit when she tried to read a higher spot. Her skirt would shift around her bottom, accentuating the appealing curves of her small body from behind. Even the way she just stood was beautiful.

Esme painted with an expert enthusiasm that made the sparkle in Carlisle's eyes dance with glee. He could not look away. Something in the way she painted, even if it was just a window frame, was spellbinding.

When she turned her head around again, he hoped she was going to ask him to help her. Instead she said innocently, "Will you not watch me the entire time? It makes me uncomfortable."

Running a hand through his hair, Carlisle tried to hide his disappointment behind a faint smile as he sat himself down on the steps of the porch and faced the other way. "I'll just look at this tree then, shall I?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that being watched for too long makes me rather nervous," she said apologetically.

Carlisle couldn't help but laugh at the look on Edward's face.

"I understand."

After a few more tense moments of listening to the bristles sway with her painting, Edward broke the silence with a silly question. "So how do you plan to reach the second story windows, Esme?"

Esme responded with an even sillier answer. "I'll stand on your shoulders, of course."

Edward smirked. "I'd need to grow quite a few more inches for that to work."

"Then you'd better start improving your diet."

At Esme's comeback, Carlisle burst into laughter, secretly hoping she would feel the same swell of pride that he did whenever he made _her _laugh.

"I'll see to that," Edward said with a wry glance between the two. "In fact, I think I'll take a trip to the forest right now," he threatened, heading toward the trees behind the yard.

Carlisle rejoiced inwardly that Edward was leaving him alone with Esme, but he had to wonder if Esme would be as thrilled. If she was uncomfortable just with him watching her paint, would she feel pressured by his mere presence if he chose to sit around and listen instead?

As Edward conveniently vanished from the yard, Carlisle forced himself to remain quiet and patient while Esme continued painting behind him. It was almost unbearable having to face the other way when he wished to be watching her. He could close his eyes and imagine it in his head, but it wasn't the same.

Her scent floated gently toward him every so often, warming his heart every time he breathed it in. The strong, unappealing scent of house paint was completely masked by her delicate essence.

A few minutes passed in silence when suddenly he heard a suspicious rustling, then a quick _snap_, followed by an exasperated sigh.

His curiosity begged him relentlessly to turn around and see what she was doing, and eventually it got the better of him.

He knew it might be an odd view that awaited him when he turned around, but never in a thousand years would he expect to receive a sinfully generous peek beneath Esme's skirt.

"Esme!" he cried out in utter shock, his thoughts whirling in alarm at the sight of her bare legs being stripped of their stockings. "Oh, dear—what on earth?" Immediately he found the good sense to turn back around, denying himself the unexpectedly stirring view.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she stuttered out, her voice quivering sweetly with embarrassment. "I got paint on my stockings!"

His chest tightened as he replayed their awkward exchange in his head. Never before had he experienced anything that went from arousing to amusing in such a short time.

All he could do was laugh at the whole thing.

When he heard Esme's helpless giggling join him, his heart felt like it was floating inside his chest.

"That is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever done," she said, happily mortified as she settled down beside him on the stone steps.

Suddenly slightly breathless, Carlisle looked down at her with a forgiving smile. "I was just very...surprised. That's all."

That was when he noticed the paranoid motions of her hands as she hastily adjusted her skirt over her knees. She had no idea how utterly _un_offended he was by the sight he had just seen.

In fact, he wished he could see it just one more time again.

Despite this foolish wish, Carlisle turned to her with a polite smile and said teasingly, "Esme, I promise you I won't ever look underneath your skirt again."

The crystal sounds of her coy giggling punctured his soul. She stared at him, her eyes full of unspoken wonder in the gentle guise of humor.

He couldn't help it anymore. Knowing her legs were utterly bare right beside him, he simply had to look.

And look he did.

His eyes were glued.

Every square inch of cream-colored skin that stretched from her knee to her delicate ankle was unforgivably tempting to his hand. His fingers felt as if they would shrivel to nothing if he did not bless them with the chance to touch her skin.

So he let himself touch her.

It was a chaste touch, but not clinical as it had once been ten years ago. He was not touching Esme as a doctor touched his patient. There was something so much more profound, so much more delectable in that touch. When he heard the delicate sound of her breath hitch at the contact, he knew it was simply impossible that she could not have felt it too.

Her skin was like velvet that had been left by the fire for too long. It was warm, it was soft, and it made him want to melt right into her. If just her leg felt this wonderful, it pained him to imagine how exquisite the rest of her body would feel.

His eyes raised to latch onto hers, and he did dare not let go this time.

At that moment he thought it was possible that they were both thinking the exact same thing.

"Do you know what's slightly incredible?" he asked her in a husky whisper.

She cocked her head to the side and implored him with wide, burning eyes.

"If it weren't for this leg...you wouldn't be here right now."

The answer to his destiny glowed within her gaze as she nodded with a dreamy smile.

"That _is_ slightly incredible."


	32. Much to Write About

**Much to Write About**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 53: Laundry and Sunshine" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

The letter was still open, laid flat on the surface of his desk.

_Dearest Carlisle,_

_On behalf of my husband, I shall waste no words before accepting your most generous invitation. We were delighted when we first received word of your new coven member, and naturally we have all been bursting with curiosity to see her. It would be an absolute joy to come and meet Esme in the spring. Incidentally, Eleazar and I have been planning to travel south this season. Unfortunately, the rest of my sisters will not be joining us. They have yet to learn a certain lesson, shall we say, and are not in the most favorable position to risk being seen publicly until further notice. Ah, Carlisle, you would surely faint from shock if you were to witness their antics during this time of year. I dearly hope your Esme's behavior bests that of our impish trio!_

_You may take the liberty of marking your calendar for Saturday, the 29th of April. My husband and I expect to arrive in Ashland between the hours of twelve and one o'clock in the afternoon. Please do notify your son and Esme of our visit. We would not want them to regard our company as an unexpected burden. _

_As I near the end of my letter, Eleazar earnestly reminds me to make note of his thanks. I believe we are both quite eager to see our old friends again. _

_Afectuosamente,_

_Carmen_

Carlisle kept the letter there as a reminder of his friends' visit, counting down the days until their planned arrival with a quiet anxiousness.

When he went to tell Esme about the news of Carmen and Eleazar's visit, he was pleased by her reaction. She seemed neither surprised nor under-whelmed; just eager enough that he did not worry over whether she felt pressured for their impending visit.

Esme was making progress, not only in her social comfort, but in her control as well. Thirst was not nearly as much of a problem for her as it used to be. Carlisle could leave for the hospital whenever he wished without feeling guilty, even while Edward was away for class. Esme was comfortable and confident enough to be in the house alone for extended lengths of time. It was rather like caring for a young child who was slowly growing up. With the long-awaited developments came a bittersweet realization that Esme's need for excessive protection and attention was ending. Some part of Carlisle still did not want to let that go.

Still, there was something about seeing Esme coming into her own that set a flustered sort of thrill through Carlisle's chest. It was because of _his_ efforts and _his_ belief in her that she was making such fine achievements, but deep down a part of him wished she would not be so eager to fly away from the caring nest he had created for her.

On the surface he was glad for her, proud that she was so confident and so hopeful of her future. Where she once looked into her future and saw only disappointment, she now shared with him all her dreams and possibilities for where her life could take her.

Esme's dreams were often big – bigger than perhaps they should be – but this was what Carlisle found most endearing about her. She was no longer afraid to make her plans, to map out the next several years with enthusiasm.

Carlisle was happy to indulge Esme in any dreams she had planned, but the rest of her day was reasonably confined to their modest mansion in the middle of Ashland. As he was learning quite quickly over the months, mundane events were not so mundane with Esme around. Though she may have regarded such household necessities like laundry to be nothing worthy of excitement, he was obliviously fascinated when she accepted the task of doing their laundry herself.

He considered it completely accidental that Esme had somehow taken on every last domestic chore that could be required of their old house. She tidied every room, dusted all the furniture, watered the plants, repainted the windows, and even swept up the dirt from under the rug in the foyer. Carlisle had not been as aware of all that Esme did for their home as he was when she began doing the laundry.

There was something about her willingness to do the laundry that sealed the envelope for him. It was so intimate, so confining to any woman who had no relation to the man for whom she served. In contemporary life, he thought, a woman had no right to do a man's laundry unless she were employed by a service, or if she were said man's wife.

Just the thought that her hands were touching and handling his clothing every day now was enough to nurse the taunting echo of wedding bells in his head. She had no idea how much he'd entertained preposterous thoughts of her washing his clothes when he was gone from the house. He imagined her with her arms soaked and her hands white with suds, her eyes keen while she pinned up each of his shirts to dry then folded them gingerly one by one.

There should not have been anything remotely arousing about Esme doing his laundry, but whenever Carlisle left the house he found himself thinking only of her knee deep in his clothes. When he arrived home after a long day at the hospital, the first thing he became alert to was the sound of Esme humming idly in the kitchen while she scrubbed away.

All the while, his love for her was growing fast and high, like a proud cornstalk in a summer field, exposing its golden bearings to the sunlight.

As far as Carlisle was concerned, the time was fast approaching for harvest.

He would retreat to his study, listening to her intently every step of the way. Such a mess surrounded him that he could barely see the dark red carpet that lie beneath the clutter. He would stumble to the chair behind his desk and take out his journal. Every evening he sat by himself by the light of the candle, surrounded by the disorganized chaos of his belongings, and he would write feverishly for however many minutes his hand could withstand before its constant shaking prevented him from writing legible words.

Eventually Esme would stop humming. Eventually she would have folded every item of clothing she had washed that day, and her chores would end.

But he would still be writing.

It was one chore of his that never ended.

Carlisle sometimes pondered how his inspiration wore him out during the dark hours of night. Sometimes he could not escape the biting urge to take a pen to paper when the sky was black and all was quiet on the earth. This naturally led him to wonder if his inspiration for love would become as potent during the deepest nights. Would this drive to write be something like the drive to make to love to his wife? Would there be some nights where he would be wilder beneath the sheets just as he had known nights where he was wilder with his words? Comparing the two enticed him, and someday he even longed to combine them. For if he were married to Esme, he would have no limits to what he wrote. He would not have to worry himself over the brink of fire that he felt approaching as his words became more passionate. Esme would be his to claim when the fire burned away his control.

For the moment, though, he was just slightly overwhelmed by the thought of her hands touching his clothes.

It wasn't enough just to listen and never see. Sometimes the eyes needed to taste the feast that the ears could only savor for so long without feeling satisfied.

One day he left the hospital early just so that he could happen across her while she was doing the laundry. It was, he thought, the only way to combat his constant daydreaming about watching her do it. He had to see her doing it in person.

He wondered if many married men were so eager to rush home just to watch their wives doing the laundry.

In his mind, it was well worth the rush.

He was fascinated by the unassuming strength of her arms as she stirred the water and rubbed the clothes against the washboard. He often forgot that Esme was just as much a vampire as he was; that she shared the same strength. It was so easy simply to see her as a sweet, vulnerable woman. But the many creative ways in which Carlisle imagined she could make use of the strength he had given her caused his heart to grow heavy in his chest.

She looked lovely in her ruffled navy blue dress with the white pinstripes running down the skirt. The scent of the soap in the room was all but inebriating, and the way she daintily stood upon her tiptoes to reach the shelves was painfully endearing.

Several times while he watched her, he bit his lip, second guessing his ability to speak out loud while she worked. He felt as if he were disrupting something very private, even though it was only laundry.

Finally he came up with the courage to offer help.

"Will you let me do the washing for a while?"

His voice sounded strained, and he only hoped she hadn't heard it that way.

"I told you, I don't mind it," she insisted sweetly, a soft smile on her face as she peered back at him. Her silky curls tumbled behind her shoulder, revealing the smooth white skin beneath.

Carlisle frowned, disappointed that he could neither take his turn at the washing nor bend over and slip his curious tongue over the nape of her neck.

Once again his gaze drifted to her arms in the water where the soap had left her skin pearly wet and glistening. After some time her motions stopped being so vigorous, instead becoming more gentle and careful.

Then her voice rose above the sloshing of the water, quick yet tentative.

"If you want to, you can help by folding the clothes that I've already dried."

Carlisle was certain that the same words would have been dreaded by a thousand other men when their wives asked them to help with household chores. To him, it was no less than a gift to help Esme.

She must have seen his unspoken agreement written on his face, for the next thing he knew she was leading him outside onto the porch to show him the clothesline where the shirts had already been hung up to dry.

"I wasn't aware we _had _a clothesline," he remarked, eyeing her strange set-up with a small gleeful smile.

She shrugged bashfully. "I just snagged one of the ropes from the curtains in the dining room."

The humorous image of Esme's slender fingers reaching up to snatch the old curtains from the dining room window made Carlisle's smile widen. "You are quite...resourceful, Esme."

She chuckled as she started removing the clothespins from the rope. "That is an elegant way of putting it."

He watched her carefully as she carried out the task of taking down the shirts from the clothesline. His eyes were glued to her graceful calves as she stood on her tiptoes again to reach the pins. Her skirt would rise up ever so slightly as she stretched, just enough to reveal the fact that she was not wearing any stockings.

He was only mildly aware that she was speaking to him, mumbling something or other about having to keep the clothes dry from the rain.

"Hmm, we may have to move this line inside somewhere," he murmured offhandedly, hoping his response was a relevant one, given the context clues.

Fortunately Esme was off in her own little world again, rambling adorably about her unconstructive plans. "I was thinking of putting it up in the washroom, but then that wouldn't be very convenient when one of us wanted to bathe."

Carlisle swallowed hard at the mention of bathing, wondering what had prompted it from the subject at hand. Esme was certainly known to ramble on to the point of changing subjects completely, but this particular tangent had caught him off guard.

He could not think of any way to respond now without giving away that he had heard nothing of what she said, save for the last word of her sentence. And there was no proper way to continue a conversation from _that_.

The awkwardness between them was clipped by the sound of her strangely high voice as she sighed, "We'll make do with what we have." She then led him swiftly back into the kitchen, the ruffles of her dark blue dress teasing him each step of the way.

Carlisle lingered by the doorway as he watched Esme return to her place in front of the washing bin. She stirred and swirled her hands in the soapy water, and her clearly practiced movements made his chest flutter. In and out, back and forth, fast then slow. Esme made everything into an art, even something as mundane was washing clothes.

He walked slowly over to the counter beside her, his uncertainty plain in the way he carried himself. He thought it funny how he could be so sure in the operating room, yet so lacking in confidence when it came to doing the laundry with a pretty woman beside him.

Folding clothes was not a demanding task on any other day, but when Esme was staring at him from the corner of her eye, he did find it quite intimidating.

Crisp linens and cottons and plaids and stripes danced before his eyes as he lifted each from its place in the basket of dry clothes. His hands were surprisingly steady as he folded the shirts and pants neatly, then piled them by order of color and pattern.

After a while of the repetitive task, Carlisle almost forgot that Esme was there scrutinizing his every move...until his hand reached into the basket and collided with something too sinfully silky to have belonged to him or Edward.

A short breath escaped his lips as his fingers clenched timidly around the corner of Esme's dress. At first he thought it might have been a nightgown, but then he quickly remembered that she would have no use for a nightgown when she did not sleep. Swallowing hard, he extracted the bit of silky cloth from the rest of the clothes and carefully lifted it out of the pile.

It was an undergarment. Albeit, a conservative one. But it was something she wore under the rest of her clothes, and that meant it was closest to her skin.

The tips of his fingers suddenly felt aflame as he let go of the slender slip, and it gathered in a flimsy pool of pure white gauze on the countertop in front of him.

Again he thought it ridiculous that something as unthreatening as an item of clothing was giving him infinitely more stress than the body of a human being whose heart was failing on the surgery table.

He could remove obstructions from people's internal organs without a cinch. But folding a woman's under-slip was another matter entirely.

Taking a discreet breath, Carlisle stepped closer to the counter and flexed his knuckles for the challenge. The fluttery white material positively burned him when he touched it. He tried to keep his touch as gentle as possible, not wanting to ruin the dress in any way, most especially when Esme was watching him.

In his head he tried to recall when he had purchased this particular piece of clothing for his innocent houseguest, but his mind only kept coming out blank. Having no memory of consciously selecting it, he had only to guess that it had been selected by whoever had sold it to him. It was fascinating how he'd become hyper-aware of such things only after Esme had been living with him for more than just a few months.

He would have to get used to things like women's undergarments if he was going to keep her under his care.

The thought made him feel strangely giddy as he continued to wrap his hands over and under the strange garment. The dress itself was made in such a way that it was certain to cling to the wearer's frame quite faithfully when it was worn. He did not need a keen imagination to gather that.

Once he had devised a way to lay it out neatly enough that it did not slip off the counter, he spread both hands over the surface and smoothed out the wrinkles, wondering if Esme's wandering eyes approved of the exceptional care he showed to her clothing.

He smoothed it out twice for good measure. Then three times just to be sure she saw it. Then once more just to see how well the material held up under the strength of his hands.

Carlisle quickly lost track of how many times he had "smoothed the wrinkles" out of that blasted white dress. His mind was somewhere else entirely as he touched it, envisioning Esme's body beneath the fabric while he hiked the hem of the flimsy skirt up over her thighs, ran his hands down the length of her waist, and trailed his fingers over the width of her bust.

When his fingers met with the tiny white laces below the low running collar, he became intent on his perfectionist approach, aware that Esme might still be watching his performance.

He tied two knots and tightened them accordingly, then let the laces dangle from his agile fingers as he slowly set them down to lay where her breasts would be if she were wearing it now...

"My dresses truly don't deserve any more attention than your shirts do, Doctor."

He jumped out of his skin at the interruption of her throaty voice, hastily coming to his own defense.

"Oh, forgive me!" He pulled his hands back as if he had just been caught infiltrating a crime scene. "I only wanted to impress thee."

He only caught the mistake mere seconds after it had already been said. There was nothing he could do to take it back, no way to excuse it with the suggestion that he had only been teasing. It was too late, and there was no way to hide it.

He mumbled incoherently for a moment, honoring the beginnings of a sentence that never made it past his lips while he felt the weight of Esme's attention sink onto his shoulders.

But as his eyes wandered toward hers, he saw that she did not look offended in the slightest. The slim shadow of a smile was upon her soft red lips, and her eyes were barely hiding a subtle sparkle.

His discomfort was clearly apparent to her, but she did nothing to acknowledge it.

He cleared his throat and offered a weak excuse. "I did not mean to waste time."

With a small wince, he allowed his eyes to meet hers fully. In wonder, he watched as her gentle smile spilled tiny giggles. The affectionate melody of her laughter drew him to join her, and a sweet light of understanding swept away any lingering embarrassment.

He hesitated for a moment before thinking about how to phrase his acknowledgment of the mistake.

"I apologize for that little...slip of the tongue," he settled with a shake of his head. "I suppose it is not much of a secret why it happens."

As quiet as his voice was, Esme's voice sounded even quieter when she asked, "Why _does _it happen?"

Resisting the urge to chew his lip and not say anything, Carlisle reluctantly revealed the truth behind his strange habit. "It happens when I'm nervous, I suppose. When I'm unsure of what to say."

Esme looked oddly enamored by this revelation. Her sweet mouth spread in a delighted, slightly mischievous grin. "Folding my dresses makes you nervous?"

Her question was highly suggestive, but his response threw a tender wrench in her pride. "When you are watching me from the corner of your eye, it does."

In an instant, she was intensely wrapped up in her unfinished laundry again. "I wasn't watching you."

The lovely shakiness of her voice suggested a poorly kept secret.

Carlisle smiled when he noticed that she was avoiding his eyes. "It felt like you were," he pointed out.

Her voice was light and unconvincing when she responded. "Rest assured, I was not." Her hands moved a little faster to finish the washing.

"If you say so," he sighed, all too passive in letting her win.

A most distressing aura of satisfaction settled around her, and within an instant of letting her out of his sight, Carlisle felt the cold spritz of water droplets being flicked onto his back from behind.

Shocked, he turned his head over his shoulder to see her biting down on a wicked smile as she feigned concentration on the washing.

"The idea is to wash the _clothing_, Esme, not _me_."

She only ducked her head down further, ignoring his comment as if she hadn't even heard him.

Before he could acknowledge the absurdity of what he was about to do, Carlisle dipped one hand into the basin of soapy water and sent a small splash in her direction.

He certainly had her attention now.

She choked on a gasp of surprise, a sound that was awfully appealing to him. If only to hear that exquisite gasp again, he reached with both arms into the basin and scooped out one of his shirts that she had left soaking in the water.

Holding the shirt up above her, he squeezed it so all the water released in a generous downpour over her head. Her hair color turned from rich caramel to deep molasses as the water slipped down her back and over her shoulders.

He couldn't help laughing at the sight of her, cringing in her place as she turned on him with affectionate flames of outrage in her eyes. "Oh, you are going to pay for that!"

Carlisle willingly surrendered to Esme's heartfelt threat.

He was happy to spend the rest of the day in slightly damp clothes.

Hours later he returned to his study, rummaged for his journal and laid a clumsy paragraph of freestyle script on the next empty pages. His words were full of feeling, but not grammatically sound. It did not matter, he thought, because no one would ever read them.

As he wrote, he watched the sun set behind the half open curtains of his windows, gleaning inspiration from the changing colors behind the glass. That particular evening, the sunset reminded him of drawing blood from a patient's arm. It leaked everywhere with astounding reddish rays, seeping from between the pasty clouds and curdling on the horizon. He thought back to the time when he had said Esme's eyes were like the sunset. Now, he decided, they more resembled sunrise. They were a rich golden color, not quite as yellow as his and Edward's were, but more ruddy, like the emboldened bronze of a god's sculpted torso.

He wrote of how he had not been able to resist her looking such a mess in her wet hair and sopping sleeves. How her white and navy dress looked gray and black when he got water on it. How the water dripped down her plump, smiling cheeks and gathered beneath her delicate chin. How his fingers had betrayed him by touching her face when such a touch was least expected of him.

There was a depth to his relationship with Esme which he had never felt before with anyone else. It was strange that something like laundry could threaten his heart with such warm strains of intimacy, but things always unfolded this way with Esme. She was unpredictable and undeniable.

Every hour he spent with her was exciting and new. In his heart he had always thought that men were only supposed to be aware of a very limited spectrum of feelings. But when he was around Esme, Carlisle began to question the limits on this spectrum. In fact, he now thought it limitless.

Sometimes he felt warm around her, and sometimes he felt chilled. Sometimes the breaths he took were rough and sometimes they were smooth. Sometimes he felt vulnerable when he was in her presence, and other times he felt so confident that he suspected he may have been controlling her every move by the way his eyes watched her.

It was pure agony watching her wander about his study each evening, sketching on random ripped out pages her plans for how she could rearrange pieces of furniture and decorate the walls. She was so heedlessly passionate about these trivial little things that hardly mattered to him, but he was obsessed with going along with any plans she made, only because she had made them.

Under her direction they had gutted out half the contents of his study, replaced and reorganized and refurbished every inch of the space until it was hardly recognizable. In the meantime they spent their days buried in mountains of antique clutter, knee deep in hundred-year-old books, and basking in the glow of hazy late spring sunlight that swept through the western windows.

It still felt strange for Carlisle to watch Esme interact with these items of his past, strange to see her touching and handling objects he had collected over the long, hollow years of his life – objects that he had once regarded as private. This room was still, in a way, the most private place he had set up for himself. But in letting Esme cross that line he felt he had opened himself up more for her than for anyone else. He welcomed her to trespass the deep dark hole of his secret life, let her come running in with her skirts flowing and her lantern swinging threateningly above everything he had kept hidden for centuries.

He was still pleasantly surprised to see that she loved everything she discovered about him.

She had her hands on everything, her scent spread throughout the room and embedded in every nook and cranny to the point of permanence. She became a part of that room and those objects, just as much as he had. Only she had managed to do it in just a few days, where it had taken _him _a few decades.

Carlisle let himself be carried away on this endless spiral of fascination until one day, Esme asked the most innocently intrusive question imaginable.

"What do you do in here all of the time?"

Her curiosity about it thrilled him as much as it made him tremble with fear. To answer her in full truth would be irresponsible and wholly inappropriate. So many of the things he had done in this room should forever remain unsaid...

But with her demanding eyes boring into him, he had only to answer her question as vaguely as possible. "I read. I pray. I work..." He paused, pondering the significance of the last verb before he said it out loud. "I write."

She leaned in towards him across his desk, her new amber eyes flashing like the faulty bulbs they used in the hospital hallways. "What do you write?"

He knew she was going to ask him this. Esme seldom if ever settled for one question at a time in one conversation. Her questions always progressed in levels, each one growing more specific as she forced him to climb a dreaded hierarchy of intimacy.

His answers were mere stepping stones for her to more easily reach the center of his soul.

Carlisle thought on how to answer her question in a way that he might be able to avoid scaling that daunting little hierarchy of increasingly prying questions.

"I assume you have seen that I keep journals," he said quietly, hoping to make it seem like nothing more than a passive fact rather than a dark secret. "I fill one every year or so."

A slightly enchanted smile crossed her lips. "You must have an entire library full of them."

Only Esme would come to such a fantastically outrageous assumption about how much he wrote and not be far from wrong.

He cleared his throat before attempting to explain. "I burn them a decade at a time. I used to do it every year, but–"

"Why would you do that?" Her warm eyes pierced him, outraged.

"I have a flawless memory," he countered swiftly. "Why should I risk someone else finding them?" _Especially curious, prodding, prying Esme. _

A smile threatened to tug at his mouth.

Her sweet voice nearly dropped to a whisper. "So they are...very personal."

His stomach twisted pleasantly, wondering where she was leading him. "Some more than others," he replied vaguely.

He watched her fiddle her fingers for a moment before she asked softly, "Do you write about your patients?"

He nodded once, relieved for a moment that she had not asked him anything more personal for the time being.

"Being that they are an integral part of my life, yes, they have earned many pages," he said.

"Do you write about Edward?"

Her words were innocent, but her eyes were gleaming with a silent cleverness.

Carlisle leaned far back in his chair and nodded again. "Of course."

From the way that gleam in her eyes sparked in the sunlight, he knew what was coming next.

"Do you write about...me?"

_Only a page a day… Sometimes a page an hour… Oh, he could write novels about every one of her features if he so desired…_

Touching a finger to his chin, he tilted his head and opened the journal in front of him to see the very last page. "I dedicated one single page to you, in the very back. I see it has yet to be filled."

Thankfully she caught onto his joke. "How witty."

Her sarcastic little smirk was intoxicating. Silence followed, and seriousness ensued as naturally as a breeze through the branches.

"Yes, I have written about you." His voice sounded a little too rough and out of place in the overly quiet room.

The oddest expression fizzled from her face in that moment, as if she had meant to smile but then remembered something that tore that smile from her face before it had the chance to show. It made him uncomfortable, but only for a second or two. Esme was apparently far too curious to let the conversation die so quickly.

"So what other things do you write about?"

He had to smile. He really was being interrogated.

"Whatever inspires me at the moment, I suppose," he said with a shrug.

Noting the blank look on her face, he had to elaborate. "It is a practice some call 'free-writing'. Have you ever heard of it?"

She bit her lip and shook her head, causing her brilliant brown curls to flutter.

Looking down at the desk before him, Carlisle let his fingers wander the familiar markings and grooves that had appeared in the solid mahogany surface after years of writing on it.

"Essentially one writes whatever comes to his mind – no matter how unorganized the words become," he spoke as his fingers traced the aged marks in the wood. "He is capturing his every thought on paper before it leaves his conscious."

The weight in the room shifted before Esme made a most startling reply.

"That sounds like it could be...intoxicating."

Her unexpectedness could be disarming at times, but it was a small price to pay.

Carlisle gulped in a breath of air and attempted to smile. "A strong choice of word."

"Addicting, then," she amended casually, a sweet look of insecurity on her face. "It sounds as if it could be addicting."

_Addicting indeed. _

He suppressed a long sigh. "I've never thought of it that way, but seeing as I've done it nearly every day for the past century, I suppose it is."

Her eyes still hadn't lost that intensely intrigued glow. "Did you always write?"

He shook his head. "Not always. But it was a relief to finally discover it." He thought back briefly to the times before he had carried a journal around with him everywhere he went. "It does help to ease the feelings of loneliness in a way...and of discontentment."

This time the silence was full of unspoken suggestions.

Naturally Esme caught onto all that went unspoken.

"I hope these are not the reasons you continue to write, Carlisle."

He looked up to find her eyes on his, almost chastising.

He smiled softly to lighten the mood. "No, of course not. I have my hands full with you and Edward now."

She mirrored his easy smile. "Thankfully we have not marred your inspiration, then."

He chuckled lightly before turning away to look out the window. Seconds passed by quickly when Esme was in the room with him. He was moved by the way she seemed to feel so at home in his study. Sitting across from him at his desk as if they were in a most intimate conference, she even felt it appropriate to slide her fingers along the surface and tap on the wooden corner with her foot.

_Tap tap clunk. Tap tap clunk. _

The little rhythm she had started was so endearing.

"When I'm painting, I work best in the early morning," she said suddenly, her voice tender and non-invasive to his distant thoughts. "When do you like to write?"

_When did he like to write_? The answer was truly anytime, anywhere. But when Carlisle really thought about it, he had to agree that the dawn was the most wondrous hour of day.

"If I can, right before the sun rises. It seems to be when my inspiration is at its peak."

She looked at him with the same suspicious intrigue. How odd that they both shared the same emotional connection over a certain time of day.

Her fingers stopped sliding along the edge of the desk. "And you write about anything?"

A deep feeling of confirmation churned inside his chest.

"Anything."

Her eyes drifted wonderingly to the windows. "So you could write about...the sun?"

Ah, the sun. Such a simple yet commanding subject. Little did Esme know, he had written about the sun at least a thousand times since he was born.

"I have written about the sun many times," he found himself admitting without a second thought.

"You have?" She looked almost proud of him for it.

He was struck with the sudden urge to write an entire book on the sun and dedicate it entirely to her.

"Yes. I could never run out of things to say about the sun."

Nor could he run out of things to say about the woman who sat across from him.

The fingers of his right hand felt like they needed some vigorous exercise right about then.

Hmm. I've never written much before," Esme said bashfully. "Inspiration draws me to paint."

"Your painting is a lot like my writing," Carlisle pointed out, hoping she could see the beauty in the parallels between their favored artistic craft. "The freedom of expression through color and poetry."

She looked for a moment as though she weren't going to respond, but she chose two tiny words to accommodate her reply. "It is."

Something even more beautiful bloomed in Carlisle's mind just then. "I see that there is a problem here," he said with a modest grin.

Esme crinkled her forehead in confusion.

"You have mentored me plenty in the art of painting," he said smoothly, "but you've not yet had the chance to write."

Her chest rose and fell with one tremendous breath of surprise. "You want me to write something?"

"The question is not whether _I_ want you to write something. If you find something inspiring, _you _should write about it."

He could almost see the hyper energy of her imagination begin flaring behind her unsteady gaze.

"I could never _begin_ to choose what I'd write about," she announced, her eyes failing madly about the room.

With one simple suggestion, Carlisle called her restless gaze to a standstill.

"The sun."

She turned to the window and released a sudden, shuddering sigh – as if she had accidentally caught sight of a pair of lovers sharing an intimate moment. "How do I describe the sun?"

"You don't even need to describe it. You can speak to it; you can imagine what it might say to you."

As he instructed her, his fingers began to trace the words he might write as he watched her, mentoring her in an art he had mastered long ago.

Watching the lovely cogs turn and twirl in her mind was maddening.

"Don't rush it... Let it come to you," he whispered, voice low so as not to disrupt her creative flow.

Esme drank in the light of the sun's possessive rays, utterly absorbed in its warmth and wonder. She had never looked more beautiful to him than she did with the golden light spilling all over her where she sat. If only she could sit across from him every morning like this, he would never be able to close his journal...

"Carlisle... I need paper."

That made two of them.

Frantically, Carlisle tore a page out of his journal, faster than he would if a fellow doctor had requested the scalpel in the middle of surgery.

He produced a fountain pen from one of his desk drawers and slipped it under her hand. She gripped the pen with inspired fingers and instantly began to scribble her thoughts onto the paper he had given her.

Watching Esme write only made _his_ need to write that much stronger.

The paper was nearly in danger of burning under his hand as he formed his own thoughts into inked words.

_The sun is loyal because it is always above me. Every day, it swerves across the sky in a perfectly predictable schedule. The sun is faithful because it will always return again – every night it hides away, but every morning it rises again. Even when I cannot see it, I know it will never be gone for good._

_A star cannot love, but I feel love from the sun. It seems as if it watches over me, as if it knows me intimately. I feel its heated gaze on my face each morning, reminding me of that love._

_There are billions of stars in the universe, but the sun is the only one I need. It is the only star I have learned to love… because I can feel its love for me._

He was sure he had never written faster in his life, but he was still not fast enough to keep up with Esme.

As he caught his breath, he met her eyes with a smile and discreetly pushed his piece of paper toward her. But all she noticed was his hand as it reached out to snatch the page on which she had written her secret thoughts of the sun.

"You aren't going to read that!"

He felt absolutely wicked for tricking her, but he was not about to let her steal that piece of paper back from him.

"I've given you mine," he informed her calmly, hoping the trade would be enough to satisfy her.

To his surprise, Esme's eyes widened in anticipation of reading what he had written. She seemed to entirely forget that he was about to read hers, instead settling back in her chair with a dazed look on her face as her eyes scanned the lines of blue ink.

As much as he wished he could watch her react to his every word, Carlisle was equally distracted with his own precious little piece of paper.

_The sun is unattainable, but I long to be like it._

_Everything and everyone loves the sun. Everything needs the sun. The earth would not exist without it._

_The sun offers warmth and light and life._

_It is more precious than gold, and more beautiful than any other heavenly body in the sky. _

Her words were so sweet and so simplistic, unpracticed but raw, understanding of the deeper meaning she had obviously tried to grasp. All she needed was a bit more coaching, a bit more experience with the pen. She would write great things if he could have his way with her...

Carlisle's eyes lifted from the small piece of paper he still gripped to find Esme still absorbed in the paper he had written. Her lips were open like the petals of a warm rose, her breasts rising and falling with every heavy exhale.

"Yours is so much more beautiful than mine."

Her overzealous compliment made him want to cry. Instead he laughed weakly, shaking his head at her as he set her paper down on the desk.

"No person's writing holds more beauty than another's," he assured. "So long as it comes from the heart, all are equally precious."

She smiled appreciatively at him, and just from the look in her eyes and the nature of the pause, he could tell that she was about to say another something unexpected.

"Perhaps you should have been a professor of writing, Doctor."

Carlisle tried not to laugh. "Who would I teach?"

"Young people."

With such a preposterous suggestion, he felt comfortable releasing his laughter. "To me, that includes everyone."

He watched as she leaned in closer, tucked her chin into her open hands and settled herself against the very edge of his desk. As distracting as her body language was, he almost missed her bashful words. "I wasn't thinking of it in that way."

All he could do was laugh softly at her as her eyes sparkled daringly up at him. "If only my current profession offered me more spare time," he whispered sincerely.

Esme looked even more hopeful. "You mean you would like to teach?"

"I wouldn't mind it, I suppose." His fountain pen suddenly felt too heavy to lift between his fingers. "Would you?"

She bit her lip and cocked her head, her eyes looking as if they were made from solid gold. "Me?"

"Yes," he said with a breathless smile. "Does teaching appeal to you?"

She looked to consider it for a moment or two, then nodded slightly. "Well...yes. Yes, it does."

"You were a schoolteacher at one time in your life," he mentioned vaguely, hoping she would not find the reminder to be depressing.

"Yes, Edward said that," she said, furrowing her brows. "But I hardly remember at all."

Finally Carlisle placed his pen down on the desk and hid it from view, trying to curb his urge to write every little thing Esme said. "Maybe…you would want to teach again someday," he offered shyly.

In just once glance, he could see that her fear of the unknown was almost gone. It had melted away, as quickly as the snow from the months of winter. The passing of time had been kind and loyal to both of them, and as Carlisle watched Esme embrace the change that came her way, he was struck with the most pleasing realization that she could have never come so far without his guidance.

Her signature coy smile flashing in the sunlight, Esme whispered one soft but loaded word.

"Maybe."

But Carlisle knew from the look in her eyes that she really meant "yes."

He would have much to write about that night.


	33. Leaving His Mark

**Leaving His Mark**

_This is the entirety of Chapter 54: Thank You for the Dance from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

She was so nervous. So delightfully nervous.

After all he had told Esme about the Denalis, she shouldn't have felt that she was about to meet a pair of complete strangers. Yet Carlisle had seen her visit the hallway mirror more than ten times in the past five minutes to check her appearance, which was always flawless in his eyes.

He could not deny that, in a state of distress, Esme was lovely. Something about her was even more appealing when she was flustered. She would run out of breath though she had no need to breathe, and her hands would tremble slightly though she had no adrenaline in her body.

It made sense to Carlisle that she was so intent on impressing Eleazar and Carmen, especially since they would be the first vampires she would be meeting, apart from himself and Edward. But it did not keep his heart from breaking when he watched her straighten her skirt and smooth her hair for the hundredth time since the day began.

He whispered to her varied promises of their visitors' certain approval throughout the afternoon _– _once when she glanced out the window, another time when she leaned closer toward the mirror, and once more when she began to pace the foyer in front of the staircase. Every time he told her not to worry, she gave him the same weak little smile and went right on biting her lip and shaking her head.

After several more attempts to reassure her only to receive the same response, he simply stopped trying.

She was hopeless.

She was also unlawfully beautiful.

If _he _had been the one about to meet her for the first time, he was certain she would have made a stunning first impression. The blue shoes she wore were just the right shade of navy to complement her ivory ankles. The hem of her skirt fell in an impeccable line around her soft round knees. Her blouse was crisp and even on every crease that followed the curves of her bust and shoulders, dipping into a modest "v" where her breasts hid beneath the clean white cotton. She still smelled of the soap she always used to do the laundry, which meant she smelled like his own clothes. He was far too happy about that.

He noticed that the laundry she had begun that morning was not finished before the guests would be arriving. In the light of her anxious mood, he made no mention of the mishap. He would gladly go to work the next morning wearing the same shirt and tie he had worn the day before.

Whenever he thought of going back to work, Carlisle felt a brief bout of grumpiness. He had been spoiled the past few days, spending less hours in the hospital and more hours in his study with Esme at night. The following week his shifts were likely to be longer. This thought depressed him.

He should have been preparing for those longer hours by catching up with his paper work before his guests arrived. But instead he was standing there in the foyer like a fool, watching Esme prod various features of her face as if they weren't more exquisite than those of a Roman goddess.

She was just so pretty when she was nervous. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

Being nervous made her vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. As shameful as it was, there was so much appeal to her vulnerability. He took advantage of her imbalance to offer words of encouragement and reassurance, gleaning too much enjoyment as he worked to chafe away her uncertainty. He noticed that she listened to him more intently when his voice was deeper, so he changed it on purpose to gain her full attention when he desired it. On the other hand, when he softened his voice, her eyes seemed to calm and her breathing slowed to a more reasonable tempo. It was entertaining, even massively empowering to be able to discreetly manipulate Esme's moods through the use of his voice. A part of him wondered if this was the main reason why society was patriarchal, and that thought put an immediate damper on his guilty pleasure.

He hoped that his presence wasn't making her more fidgety than normal. He had wanted to be a comfort to her by staying close by, but clearly his kind comments and varied tonal inflections were not making much difference. Instead, he felt a bit awkward and useless as he waited for the Denalis' arrival with Esme by the front door.

The clock sung out for noon, a cue that they had all been anticipating since the first chime of the new day. Of course Carlisle anticipated that cue for an entirely different reason. It was like a secret song telling him now was the moment he could hold her hand.

His fingers grazed hers first, and she caught the hint of welcome. Eagerly, perhaps more out of desperation for support, her hand fitted itself to his. Their palms curved snugly in a locked position that was now amazingly familiar as they stepped out onto the porch to greet the vampires coming up the front lawn.

Edward was more excited than a puppy dog.

Carlisle could not help the twinge of hurt that bit at his heart while he watched Edward interact in an overly friendly manner with Eleazar in particular. His son was indeed happy that he had new people to entertain.

Carlisle was anchored back to the moment by Esme's small hand in his. Her arm shook slightly as if from a chill, and he gripped her tighter, a simple reminder of his awareness. The tenderness of the tiny, almost insignificant acknowledgment inspired him to greet his friends with gentle gusto.

"Welcome to Ashland!"

"Enjoying the weather already," Eleazar said jokingly as he held up his hand to the falling rain.

Carlisle felt Esme shift nervously beside him as Carmen and Eleazar climbed the steps to the porch. He stepped protectively up behind his former patient, seizing the opportunity to make introductions for her.

Unwilling to pry his fingers apart from hers, he awkwardly kept hold of her hand as he gestured with his own.

"I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our coven." He paused as he settled both hands on Esme's narrow shoulders, still trapping one of her hands underneath his. He felt almost intimidated by the three pairs of eyes fixed intently on him as he announced, "Eleazar, Carmen; this is Esme."

He hoped to God her name hadn't sounded as recklessly affectionate as he thought it did.

Thankfully the moment was swept off its feet by Carmen's enthusiastic reply. "Dear Esme! It is simply a _delight_ to meet you."

Carlisle fumed for an irrational instant as Carmen unwittingly snatched Esme's warm little hand away from his.

"Likewise," Esme said, her voice sounding brighter already, though still rather timid.

Carlisle felt a bolt of lightning hit him squarely in the chest as his closest male friend then stole Esme's much coveted hand and held it up to his lips.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Esme."

His smile was dangerously debonair.

"The pleasure is mine," Esme replied.

As she said it, the word "pleasure" was a poignant paradox. She made it sound like honey and silk, and he hated it.

Carlisle slid his hands more firmly over Esme's shoulders, subconsciously enhancing his claim on her. Though he was fairly sure his inner emotions did not show on his face, Edward's disgruntled wince told him that his thoughts were being broadcast quite clearly.

"You have certainly come a long way to be with us," Esme continued the innocent conversation, her shoulders shifting beneath his hands with the slightest animation.

"It was no trouble," Carmen assured. "The company of good friends is worth any distance." Her familiar almond eyes glanced up at Carlisle and a wry smile crossed her lips.

Carlisle smiled hesitantly back, unsure what had caused precedent for the strange glint in Carmen's eyes. Even more suspicious was the fact that her husband shared the same exact look when he nodded at her words.

He could see it then. It was just a flash of a feeling, but he sensed it so clearly. They were both sizing him up, assessing the way he looked and acted with Esme standing so close to him...with her shoulders tucked so neatly beneath his possessive hands.

Immediately, Carlisle pulled his hands away, hoping to discourage any suggestions that his touch was more than that of a vigilant caregiver.

"Won't you come inside?" he quelled, making his point quite clear by holding the door open wide for them to move indoors.

They passed him by without a care in the world, seemingly blissfully unaware of his simmering frustrations. Carlisle adored his friends with all his heart, it was true, but they had no right to assume _anything_ about his relationship with Esme mere moments after they'd met her.

If there was one thing he knew about Carmen and Eleazar, it was that they were Latin through and through. They sensed romance in places where it was not, and they were even more keen to sense it where they _wanted _it to be.

Esme was naturally the last to enter the house after the others, prone to dawdling as she was. Carlisle reveled in her weakness, as it allotted the brief moment he needed to catch her eye and share a secret smile with her before his friends found more fuel for their romantic suspicions.

Esme's comfort came first.

Lively conversation blossomed around him, but he heard no more than a few disjointed phrases about the house and the fact that it was supposedly haunted. Edward seemed excited, and Carmen was laughing, and Eleazar was asking deeply interested questions about the property. But all Carlisle could focus on was the way his center of gravity was in constant flux when Esme moved in the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the way Eleazar lingered around his wife, like a tentative magnet. He saw the way Carmen stared at her husband, with the starlight of the Spanish countryside hidden in her eyes. Everything they did was somehow connected with the other; every action, every word, every step was counterbalanced by their mate. It was the single most exquisite thing Carlisle had ever seen.

He wondered how he had failed to notice it so strongly before.

Several blind steps later, he found himself situated on the veranda outside, overlooking the vast yard in the back of the mansion while the others continued conversing about nonexistent cemeteries nearby. His heart ached more with every wayward glance Carmen and Eleazar shared, until Esme's gentle voice pierced the distant noise of the rest.

Like a bell from a distant church steeple, her words beckoned him out of his daze.

"Lake Cordial."

His heart pumped back to life as her eyes snapped onto his.

"That's what they call it in these parts," she quoted him, recalling what he'd told her about their private lake many months ago. Her plump lips spread into a tempting smile, and he forced his eyes to look away from the sinful sight.

But he, too, smiled at the prospect of the sin.

Oh, to return to those days of carefree innocence.

His memory entertained a fleeting flashback of her wading in the water beside him...her shock at how warm the water felt as she stretched her sensitive newborn toes and giggled with wonder.

A few moments later Edward's sharp voice interrupted, "Come and see my archer's bow!"

Already he was going to start his big production of show and tell.

Carlisle reluctantly followed the others into the yard to humor Edward as he flaunted his expensive weapons.

"Carlisle bought it for me when we moved in," he stated with a pointed look in the doctor's direction.

"Oh, how generous of him!" was Carmen's gushing reply.

Carlisle smiled weakly again, wondering why he felt so inadequate to assume the role of Edward's father at the moment. In the corner of his eye he could see that Eleazar had already filled the position. Already Edward was making sporting conversation with him about target practice.

Perhaps it was more appropriate for Eleazar to play the role of Edward's father; after all he bore a much closer resemblance to the boy, both of them sharing the same stunningly darker features.

Carlisle suddenly felt very outnumbered being the only light-haired individual on his own property.

Playing on the stray thought of his blond hair, Carlisle was roused by the close point of an arrow being thrust toward his forehead.

"Unfortunately Carlisle won't let me use his head for practice," his son teased.

Carlisle quickly ducked away before Edward could poke him with the arrow, embarrassed by Carmen's laughter at the sight.

He couldn't bear to see if Esme noticed as well.

To make matters worse, Edward's teasing had given Eleazar other ideas.

"Well then, we should have some _real_ target practice for a change! What do you say, Carlisle?"

Oh, Lord, not this game. He knew it well. They had done it before. It was Edward's favorite pastime, and Carlisle loathed it. He did not condone violence to begin with, even the kind that could not do any real damage to them, but he knew given the current circumstances, his counterparts were going to be _merciless _to him if he agreed to play.

"He'll come with us," Edward said boldly. Carlisle shot him daggers, but he was no threat to his son. "Let's go."

With that, Edward tossed a quiver over his shoulder and raced into the woods with an excited Eleazar following close behind.

Carlisle reveled in his own inner turmoil for a moment as he was left alone with the two women who were watching the scene with silent interest.

Carmen smiled. "He's quite active, that Edward. I don't know how you managed him when he was a newborn."

"It was not easy," Carlisle admitted. _Not easy at all._

His skin prickled strangely as Carmen's fingers slid around his wrist in a purely friendly gesture. Still, something rough and instinctual inside of him was offended that any woman besides Esme had the right to touch him at all. The feeling frightened him, and he quickly buried it with a tense smile, pretending he felt nothing. "And as you can see, I'm still chasing after him," he said with a nod in the direction his son had taken off into the trees.

Carmen smiled back in understanding, but Esme looked somewhat detached from the happenings around her as she watched him step lightly toward the forest.

He was confident that Carmen would take care of Esme while he paid his dues with Eleazar and Edward. Still, he hated to leave her for any amount of time. Especially when he knew a rather violent welcome awaited him just beyond those trees.

Carlisle bent over to pull his boots more snugly up to his calves as he sped briskly through the woods. His eyes continued to search lazily for Eleazar and Edward, but they appeared to be nowhere in immediate sight. Their scents were somewhere nearby, but they were also mottled by the lingering moisture in the air. He had no idea what direction to follow in order to find them, so he simply slowed his pace and wandered aimlessly through the maze of trees and brush.

The air was sparkling with leftover mist from that afternoon's storm, and the entire forest was fragrant with the pride of spring's arrival. Tiny green and yellow buds were sprinkled over branches of trees, and the emerald needles of tall spruce trees were glittering, wet from the rain.

As was the natural course of events when he was alone, his mind turned to thoughts of Esme. She would look so lovely out here in the dark, glistening forest. Her eyes would have filled with wonder at every little detail, her soft humming would have kept him company as he dawdled along the muddy trail.

Perhaps, if they ever had the forest to themselves, he would consider kissing her out here.

A foolish smile flickered on his face as he paused in the middle of the woods, imagining the rush that would follow such a wondrous whim. Indulging himself in a longing sigh, he tilted his head back to admire the canopy of trees above him, drinking in the barren rays of silvery spring sunlight that filtered through the trembling leaves.

Just as he was starting to enjoy the peaceful beauty of the woodland scene around him, Carlisle was startled by a sharp _crack! _from his side.

His eyes snapped to the ground where the sound had come from, discovering a dead rabbit by his feet. A fresh arrow was sticking out from its tender neck, a rivulet of blood leaking from its fur onto the leaf-strewn ground.

A throat cleared from behind him, and Carlisle whipped around to find Edward's all-knowing eyes staring back at him, lips struggling not to reveal an amused grin.

He stepped forward and bent to pick up the arrow with the rabbit still skewered on its end, presenting it to his father as if inviting him to sample it.

Carlisle stared at him in blunt confusion until Edward replied suggestively, "You looked thirsty."

Carlisle felt an ambush of embarrassment as his fantasy of kissing Esme in the forest resurfaced in his thoughts.

Before Edward could wince, Eleazar appeared from the opposite side of the clearing with one archer's bow in each of his hands.

"For such a brisk afternoon, there's a distinct warmth to the air, wouldn't you say?" he said conversationally as he sauntered toward Edward and Carlisle.

Edward blinked innocently at his father as he rubbed his chin in consideration. "Hmm, yes, now that you mention it."

Feeling vaguely like he was being cornered, Carlisle stepped back as they advanced. "To what, exactly, are you referring?"

"Oh, nothing," Eleazar said airily, shrugging his shoulder. "Just marveling at the way one man and his emotions can control the climate."

In a most ironic reaction, Carlisle's face burned.

"If this is about—"

"That darling young damsel who tends to your gardens and folds your shirts every morning?" Eleazar interrupted with a charming smile. "It is."

So they _were _going to bring up Esme.

Carlisle's reflexes barely had time to react as his friend suddenly tossed him a bow and a quiver of arrows to keep for himself. Now that all three men were evenly armed, he supposed they were all fair game for target practice.

Carlisle desperately wished the ground would swallow him whole.

"I'm not following," he defended, not liking the way they were looking at him one bit.

Eleazar cocked an eyebrow as he swiftly prepared his bow and arrow for his first shot.

"You're a doctor. You should recognize a fever when you have one."

The Spaniard lifted his bow and took aim before his friend could move out of the line of fire.

"Stop," Carlisle whimpered brokenly as the tip of the arrow hit him squarely in the center of his chest. He felt a disarming wave of vulnerability take him over as he extended his own weapon with one arm, leaning against a tree for support as his son and his friend walked slowly up to him.

"It is _painfully _obvious, Carlisle," Eleazar emphasized, shaking his head in pity. "Carmen and I had an inkling from the way you wrote about her in your letters, but everything we've seen since we arrived here just confirms it."

Carlisle shouldn't have been baffled to hear this, but he was.

"Like what?" he demanded, his voice weaker than he wished it would be.

"Only the fact that you revolve around her like the happy little earth goes 'round the bloody sun." As he spoke, Eleazar drew a quick little circle in mid-air with his finger. "Really, Carlisle. Galileo would be proud!"

His comment was good-natured, intended to be teasing, but Carlisle found it infuriating all the same.

"What are you saying?"

Eleazar edged closer to the doctor with a significant look, his voice appropriately low. "I'm saying you should give her _more_ to do than just trim your perennials."

"I beg your _pardon_?"

Carlisle winced as he was suddenly blasted on the head with another arrow. "Ayayay! Stop asking questions!" Eleazar shouted, scaring quite a few forest critters away. "You know exactly what I am talking about."

Beside him, Edward stood with a blank stare, somewhat concerned for his father. "You know, I'm honestly beginning to think he doesn't."

Carlisle groaned unappreciatively, rubbing the tender spot on his head where Eleazar's arrow had hit.

Not a moment later he was bombarded with the very predictable question.

"Exactly _when_ were you planning to tell her how you feel about her?"

Hiding his outright shock at being interrogated with such private questions, Carlisle only shrugged innocently. "When the moment is right."

Eleazar and Edward exchanged a hopeless glance.

"In that case I suggest you do it when the moment is wrong," Eleazar suggested, his tone that of a well meaning friend whose intention was to give serious advice.

Carlisle looked away from the two pairs of dark, prying eyes and mentally admonished himself for letting them question his feelings.

"I... I just don't want to frighten her," he whispered to the wind, solemn and soft.

Eleazar promptly walked up behind him, set an understanding hand on his shoulder, and shared a bold secret. "My friend, when the lion seeks to mate, he does not roar, but rather purrs."

His accent made it sound exotic and thrilling. Carlisle conveniently pulled his shoulder away.

"He's been purring for seven months now," Edward said, his voice laden with lazy exasperation. "Esme doesn't exactly catch on quickly."

Nearly at his wit's end, something in Carlisle finally snapped. Before he could think rationally about his reaction, he reached into his quiver, nocked an arrow, and took a swift shot at his son's head.

"Enough, Edward!"

"Well, it's true!" the teenager laughed, scrambling easily out of the way before he could become the target of Carlisle's second shot. "She's just as thick as you are!"

Though it may have very well been a valid point, Carlisle could not find any scrap of amusement in his son's comment.

"Do _not_ talk about her that way!" he hissed, defending Esme to the very last word.

Prompted by the unpleasant tension that had risen between the father and son, Eleazar hastily interfered before things could get any more heated.

"Carlisle, we were only trying to help you," he murmured, his eyes genuine enough to override the excuse.

Carlisle found himself at a brief loss for humility in that moment. His thoughtless response was curt, quick, and a little ignorant.

"Thank you, but I don't need it."

He turned on his heel, about to leave the scene, when he heard Edward mutter under his breath, "We all know what you _do _need."

That was the final straw.

The last of Carlisle's arrows went flying as he chased after his son, shooting mercilessly at the offensive flash of bronze that flitted to and fro behind the forest trees. Eleazar joined in the war, laughing along with Edward as they turned it into a game.

To Carlisle's displeasure, Edward managed to dodge ten out of twelve shots.

Though Carlisle hated to inflict pain upon anyone other than himself, he had to take out his frustration somehow. It was a strange feeling, almost an appreciation he felt toward his son for trying so callously to get a confession out of him. Yet he was at the same time angered that Edward had the nerve to be so bold with him, especially in the company of others.

After a rough, rowdy chase through the woods, Carlisle was sporting more than just several nicks in the back. The pain was tolerable, but it left a significant sting on the surface of his skin. Carlisle did not need to lift his shirt to know he had been hit quite a few more times than his two rivals. While he usually never let the fire of competition burn him after an innocent game, he discovered that he was rather bitter over his loss when they got back to the house.

Ignoring the muffled sounds of Edward's snickering and Eleazar's insincere words of pride, Carlisle shrugged off his quiver and dropped his bow on the steps up the veranda before seeking refuge inside.

He may as well savor his defeat.

******-}0{-**

Instead of a stronger sun, a vacant shadow loomed over the property when the afternoon set in. The clouds sank down into the personal space of the earth below, letting loose a mighty groan of heavy rainfall that was sure to last the next few hours.

While the company of his dear old friends was more than welcome, Carlisle was beginning to feel more and more that his invitation had been made in haste. He'd had a vague idea of how Carmen and Eleazar would react to Esme when they met her. The one thing he did not anticipate, however, was how ridiculously fond they would be of her, almost to the point of calling her family after just a day of knowing her.

Eleazar had already made it abundantly clear that he hoped for Carlisle to make Esme his mate. It was now just as plain to Carlisle that Carmen wished the same.

It was bad enough when she made a not-so-subtle remark about Esme being too "under-stimulated" in his house. His reaction was predictably shocked, though he was determined Edward had gotten his final dose of amusement for the day.

_"A woman cannot be content with only painting and housework, you know."_

Carlisle would have been more than happy to give Esme a dozen other chores to complete. He had a whole, obscene list of them stored away in his mind, which he added onto daily. It was one list he wouldn't dare put down in writing.

Every time he thought about it, his guilt got the better of him, and he longed to scratch it out of his brain. But every thought he had ever entertained came at the expense of his guilt, and Esme's honor.

He felt he was getting a little bit closer to revealing _something _of her secret nature...but Carmen and Eleazar's visit was only interrupting an already slow and agonizing process.

He didn't know why they were so intent upon meddling in his personal affairs. They had never been so interested before in how he handled his life. The pressure to find a mate had never been so strong for Carlisle as it was now. When Carmen and Eleazar were around, he began to notice how appealing the life of mated vampires could be. When they were around, he began to question the risks he would be taking if he fell to his knees before Esme that very night and requested her hand in marriage.

All while touring the house with his guests, Carlisle was consumed by brilliant, fleeting images of Esme's fine, artistic hand, resting on his arm. The one glaring difference he saw between her hand in real life and her hand in his dreams was the glistening diamond perched on her left ring finger.

That tiny diamond taunted him, though it was only a figment of his mind. He imagined Esme's fingers stretching as she reached to open the window, and the fiery white jewel on her hand exploded like a newborn star as the sunlight bounced off of it.

How he wished he could make that a reality. He could change the way Esme's left hand looked forever.

Not that it wasn't perfect already.

And now they wanted her to play the harp.

Oh, that was all he needed. He was already tortured enough by all her painting and drawing, now he would be tortured by her frantic little fingers flitting over the silvery strings of that old harp every day.

He could just see it now, how beautiful she would look, leaned close to the instrument in the dim music room, moving slowly with the music she created. Her emotions would pour out in an enviable ocean of sweet songs, as her elegant fingers produced scintillating chords for his heart to dance along to in the night.

He _desperately_ needed a moment to write alone in his study.

"It isn't polite to hover, Carlisle," Carmen's accented voice chided in a motherly way.

He had his excuse.

Just before he left the room, he saw Esme glance over at him, like a curious child peeking warily into a lion's cage.

Could she see the starving beast that hid, tucked away inside of him?

Only moments passed, but every step he took away from that room felt like a bounding leap over valleys and oceans when he was walking away from her.

He knew they would be talking about him as soon as he left. He already heard his name being muttered, so quietly it sounded like the faint, ethereal voice of a fairy outside the window in a dream.

Let them talk about him. He didn't really care.

When he reached his study, he closed the door as if it were made of paper-thin glass. With all of the feelings he had pent up inside of himself, he was liable to break it to splinters at any given moment. He settled his forehead wearily against the smooth wood and sighed, listening to the glitter of harp chords down the hall.

There should have been nothing erotic at all about the sounds of a harp, but to Carlisle, the music seemed to match his emotions with frightening accuracy. The stream of notes shimmered higher and higher, like desire mounting inside his belly. The chords flowed in and out, over and under, grasping and fleeting. They were beautiful, but they were so hard to keep up with, always moving, always shifting out of reach. So frustrating, yet so wonderful to listen to. Tantalizing to the ears.

The seduction of the harp had captured Carlisle, body and soul for one precious instant. In that instant he was sure if Esme had suddenly walked into his study, he would have to lay her down on the carpet and shamelessly explore the many tempting inches of uncharted skin she hid beneath her clothes.

He was dangerously anxious to lose his honor, and to steal hers.

Selfishly, he blamed it on Eleazar and Edward's confrontation. They had aggravated him, pulled him out of the protective shell he had built for himself, and forced him face to face with the sharp, hot truth.

But deep down Carlisle knew it was his own fault for wanting Esme. Just as true, it was his own fault that he could still do nothing about it.

******-}0{-**

"You look..._consumed_, Carlisle."

Carlisle looked up to find Eleazar's inquisitive golden eyes staring at him in concern.

"What else is new?" Edward could be heard muttering several yards away in the trees.

Carlisle shook his head slightly without an answer and let his gaze explore his surroundings. He was sitting on a fallen log in the clearing of a forest, facing the edge of a shallow cliff that overlooked the hills and valleys of the neighboring county.

For a moment he forgot entirely where he was and what he was doing. Eleazar and Edward may as well have kidnapped him while he was daydreaming in his study an hour ago and dragged him across the mountains north of town.

To him, the world was nothing more than a poorly painted watercolor film. He could walk right through it, watching the delicate colors fade and swell day by day.

The sky behind the silhouette of the pine covered mountain beyond their perch was stunning. He had seen many purple sunsets before, but none so achingly romantic as this one. Every pale pink cloud seemed to be resting on another, each one paired with its soul mate so that it did not have to be alone when the sun set into darkness. Carlisle was slightly envious of those clouds. They all had partners with whom to share the night.

He expected Edward to snort in irreverent humor when he heard this thought, but there was only silence in the treetops and surrounding streams. Utter peace was at his fingertips, but his heart was impenetrable to the infection.

"My friend, I hope you don't think it too forward of me, but I've thought up a few very clever ways you could profess your love for Esme."

Carlisle's eyes rolled back into his head as he let his body fall hopelessly into the thick, cool grass behind him.

He didn't bother responding, but Eleazar did not take his reaction to heart.

"No, really. Some of them are rather brilliant if I do say so myself."

Carlisle replied with a non-committal moan of disinterest. He wanted nothing more than to slap the proud grin off his friend's face, but he didn't even have the energy to do that.

"I concur," Edward said with an equally irritating smile. It was all the encouragement Eleazar needed to elaborate.

"Picture this: Esme walks into the house one morning to find every room filled to the ceiling with roses—"

Already, Carlisle felt he could have broken a sweat.

Rolling over in the grass onto his elbows, he quickly cut Eleazar off. "I don't want to hear any of this."

"Ah, come now. It's an ideal scenario, and I've got it all planned out perfectly for you." His voice became sly. "You're going to love how it ends..."

Carlisle closed his eyes and refuted once more, softly. "I said no."

The crickets peppered him with concerned chirps until he could take the silence no more. With a grunt, he pushed himself off the ground and brushed off his clothes.

Eleazar and Edward were both staring at him, looking ironically innocent in the gentle violet glow of the sunset.

He knew they were just trying to help him. That was precisely what made the situation so much more difficult.

Carlisle took a deep breath. "Eleazar, I appreciate the sincerity of your interests, however I don't appreciate being a constant source of entertainment to you both. I apologize that I've been such a poor host for your visit thus far, but if you'll excuse me, I'll now be returning home for the evening."

He hated that he had to be so disgracefully formal, but it was the only way they were going to listen to him. Neither of them protested, their faces numb.

With his hand curled snugly against his hip, Carlisle began the long walk back home.

******-}0{-**

Instead of going straight into his study, Carlisle decided to settle in the music room that night. Esme's essence lingered in the room, the echoes of her amateur harp playing still seemed embedded in the walls.

To complement the mood, he paused to turn on the old gramophone that Edward always used, pleasantly surprised to hear the score for his favorite opera on record. He picked a seat by the window and heaved as sigh as he fell back into the cushioned chair. On a whim he slipped his shoes off and kicked them underneath the coffee table.

No wonder Esme loved going barefoot so often. It gave him a childlike comfort that he had not felt in ages. It was wonderful, liberating in a way that did anything but inspire guilt.

He could hear Esme and Carmen upstairs, laughing, conversing, and forming bonds of an unspoken sisterhood that would like last for eternity. The ambience of their blossoming friendship, while beautiful, broke his heart because he was not a part of it.

He had to remind himself that his bond with Esme was just as special, just as rare and precious. And it was only theirs to share.

A low gravelly sigh pushed through his throat, and he covered his mouth, mildly disturbed by his more frequently possessive thoughts of all things that had to do with Esme.

She certainly brought out the vampire in him. But now he was beginning to wonder, in spite of his fears, if the vampire that lurked inside of him was really _all bad..._

The familiar music stroked his ears as if to reassure him that he was not _all bad. _Carlisle eased back in his chair, staring out the dark window while the strings of a muffled orchestra soothed his mind.

Footsteps approached from the hallway, and deep down he knew whose they were, but he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he all but missed her entrance.

She was wrapped in shadow where she stood in the doorway, lit from behind by a lamp at the far end of the hall. Her silhouette was like an impressionist painting _– _frustratingly unclear to his eyes, which had been made lazy by several hours of under-usage.

"I thought you'd be out with the others."

Her voice was so flawlessly sweet when she spoke so softly. He imagined how perfect Esme's voice would sound bidding young children goodnight while she tucked them into bed. Everything about her was so appealingly maternal.

"I wanted to come home before darkness fell," he admitted. Truly, he wanted to be closer to her. He couldn't stand one more minute stumbling blindly through the dark night without her.

She murmured a soft "oh" and shifted, her hands fiddling with the material of her dress.

"Wasn't Edward upset?" she asked in concern. Carlisle resisted the urge to laugh bitterly at how wrong she was to be worried. Instead, he offered a brief explanation for his past resentment over Edward's relationship with Eleazar, how he had once been jealous of the time they spent together whenever they visited Alaska.

"Edward was still getting used to me then, and I'd say he's still getting used to me now," Carlisle finished with a sigh.

Then Esme moved across the room toward the window, and he saw what she was wearing.

He hadn't realized his eyes were half-closed until she paused in front of him, dressed in...something...he had no words to describe. Sheer, unsubstantial wrappings of tissue-thin rosy satin had been liberally draped around her body without a care in the world as to which parts they covered and which they left nothing to the imagination.

"As an adolescent, I'd say that is natural behavior on Edward's part," she said, "and only more solid proof that you are indeed his father."

At first he was dumbfounded, having no reference to recall what relevance her words had to the conversation at hand. Then his lips broke into a completely involuntary grin, somehow emboldened by her beauty as she stood so close to him in the dark room.

After a long, torturous day, he finally had her all to himself.

"This is beautiful music," she noted, staring at the decrepit old gramophone as if it were encrusted with diamonds. "Where is it from?"

He had almost forgotten that there was even music playing.

"Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly," he redeemed himself smoothly. With the intention to impress her, he added casually, "I went all the way back to Europe in 1904 to see its premiere in Milan."

Esme paused to listen to the passionate lyrics, her lips curling into a mischievous smirk as she gathered the nature of the aria. "Let me guess, it's a romantic tragedy."

Carlisle was surprised by her guess. "You know your Italian."

Sheepishly, she shrugged. "No, I can just tell from the way she sings it."

_Of course she could_, he thought, his chest swelling with admiration. Esme was a woman, and her heart could hear clearly the soulful yearnings of another woman, no matter what the language.

Esme's heart was fluent when it came to reading the emotions of others.

"Come sit with me," he invited, pushing his chair back to make room for her so that she had no choice but to oblige him in his request.

Her eyes brightened with appreciation as she neared him, assaulting his senses with a warm breeze of her soft, feminine scent.

"You seem to have forgotten your shoes, Doctor," she said, her voice thickened by amusement as she caught sight of his bare feet. Until she mentioned it, he had forgotten how exposed being barefoot around other people made him feel. Yet the exposure was a delight when Esme was the one who witnessed it.

"Hmm, so I have," he murmured, wiggling his toes against the rough carpet. "Your habit of frolicking about the house barefoot must be rubbing off on me."

He made a clever pun of his words by physically rubbing her foot with his as she stepped across his legs in making her way to the empty chair. She stumbled a bit in surprise, her breath coming out in a quick gasp that inspired him to chuckle. Some immature, boyish part of him still enjoyed startling a girl when she least expected it.

Luckily, Esme was still smiling.

"No candles this evening?" she inquired in a shocked tone, eyes darting about the room in a feigned search.

No wonder the room felt so chilly and empty. How could he have forgotten his candles?

"Thank you for reminding me," he said, bending forward to find the matchbox under the table between them. Esme looked ever more amused. Talking too quickly from excitement, he immediately shot out of his chair and headed toward the door. "I found an old candlestick in one of the cabinets while we were clearing out the study the other day. I forgot to show it to you. I'll go get it."

He sped through the hallway, into his study, and threw open the bottom cabinet behind his desk, grabbing his simple silver treasure. Just as quickly, he reached into the drawer where he kept his stash of candles, picking up the first one he thought would make a decent fit.

When he came back to the music room, Esme was already perched on the edge of her chair with anticipation for what he would bring.

He knew her well enough by now to know that she would want to touch it, so he held it out for her before she had to ask to hold it.

She smiled as her fingertips traced the interlaced patterns on the base of the candlestick. "It's beautiful."

"Isn't it? I polished it just this morning. I'm not even sure where I acquired it in the first place," he mentioned offhandedly, settling down across from her as he placed it in the center of the table.

"One of the many wonderful things about spring cleaning – you find things you didn't even know you had," Esme teased in a perky voice.

His laughter mingled with hers, and the resulting sound almost inebriated him.

He wanted to hear it over and over and over...

Instead he let the laughter fade, distracting himself with the important task of lighting the candle.

Before he could open the box of matches, Esme cut him short.

"I'll light it."

Her small hand extended, ready to receive what he could give, her palm curved and open like a porcelain candy dish.

He wondered why she asked to do it, but he certainly was not going to stop her.

Unable to refuse her the honor, he obediently deposited a single match into her hand and settled back to watch what promised to be a magical sight.

She shifted her bottom to the very edge of her seat cushion, so that her knees were pressed against the rim of the coffee table. The short flowing sleeves of her dress rippled over her shoulders, an ethereal illusion as if she were underwater. With her slightest movements, the dreamy mauve satin creased and crinkled around her waist, gathering and tightening across her bust as she leaned down.

His breath hitched as she unwittingly offered him a lasting view of her cleavage. Guilty for staring, he instead looked to her fingers in time to see her strike the match, succinct and with purpose. A ruby ember of fire glowed on the end of the stick, sending swirling gray tendrils of smoke into the air.

With one hand Esme reached out and grasped the silver candlestick for stability while she lit the wick. As far as he was concerned, watching her hand grasp anything so tightly was even more egregious than simply staring at her breasts.

Carlisle tensed as he was suddenly bathed in golden candlelight, for a moment feeling irrationally exposed, as if she could physically see his thoughts now that the room was more well lit.

Her lips contracted into a tight little circle as she gently blew out the match, and then, having finished the deed, she looked to him, already knowing she had his approval.

Her gaze speared him sharply, a most wonderful harshness that felt infinitely stronger than the burning tip of any archer's arrow. Eleazar and Edward had decorated him with little marks of pain fairly well that afternoon, but no brief sensation their shots had given him could rival the deep, lingering ache of Esme's piercing stare. Even though their earlier target practice had been all in good sport, Carlisle could still feel the points on his body where their arrows had hit, now smarting in this dark room with Esme as his only company. He found himself wishing he could remove every scrap of clothing he wore so that he could point out every aching spot on his skin for her to kiss.

"So how many operas have you been to?" she asked, her genuine interest in starting conversation making him feel exceedingly guilty.

"Quite enough," he rasped with a slightly bitter chuckle. Operas had been his most favored form of escape during the last century.

"I don't believe I've ever been to any high arts productions in my time," Esme lamented, glancing over at him to mark the significance of an unspoken suggestion.

_Oh, he would take her._ He would take her to the opera...and everywhere beyond.

"We shall be sure to amend that in the near future," he promised, pleased by her expression, which more resembled a dreamy little girl at the moment.

"I can just imagine Edward's enthusiasm," she said, already envisioning their first outing in her head.

The mention of Edward made Carlisle feel a little blue. At the moment he was not sure his son would be so enthusiastic about going to an opera _– _unless Eleazar was there to accompany them.

"He is a lover of music if I've ever seen one," Carlisle sighed, fiddling his thumbs as he hoped Esme would change the subject.

"It's beautiful, isn't it? The way he's so passionate about it?"

And just like that, her appreciation for Edward made him reconsider every negative thought that had moments ago crossed his mind.

"It is," he confessed, wholly reminded of everything he loved about his son, just from one affectionate remark from Esme. Her love for him was unreal.

"Has he always been that way?" she asked, her warm eyes begging for more than just a short answer. So Carlisle gave her a generous reply this time, recounting the remarkable moment when he first learned of Edward's talent with the piano.

It felt odd at first, sharing such a private memory with Esme. But then, it felt perfect, like he had been meant to share the story with her all along. He silently marveled at all these things he was learning with her _– _how to confess things without holding back, how to describe his emotions in a way that involved words instead of thoughts. It was almost like he was writing in his journal, and suddenly he was not so afraid to reveal things he wouldn't dream of saying out loud. Esme became the pages of his journal, and he seemed to be writing all over her.

Having finished the simple story of his first time listening to Edward play the piano, Carlisle very fervently wished to tell Esme more intimate stories of his past. Those that involved Edward, and those that did not.

"The way our memory works is so confounding," she said, filling the silence he had left in his wake. He glanced at her, noting that her eyes seemed more distant now since he'd stopped speaking. "That reminds me of something I wanted to tell you."

His body warmed with interest. "Hm?"

She suppressed a look of pride as she revealed, "I remembered something else from my childhood this evening." She looked at him again, knowing she was keeping him on the edge of a hook, and liking it.

He tilted his head, urging her to continue.

"My housekeeper used to braid my hair when I was young," she said, fondly touching the caramel wisps over her ear.

The recollection struck Carlisle just as strongly – the image of a stout, bustling young woman with a pink face running toward him from the Platts' small farm house.

"Bethany."

Esme's eyes turned sharp with confusion. "Who?"

"Your housekeeper," he clarified. "That was her name. Bethany."

Esme's face immediately softened as she laughed. "Oh!"

It was obvious that she still barely remembered the woman. He smiled wryly as he watched her continue nervously twisting the ends of her hair. His fingers, as always, were severely tempted to feel what she felt.

Unable to resist, he leaned toward Esme across the table and gently grasped the silky end of her braid.

"Is that what _this _is all about, then?"

Her lips curled into a shy smile as her fingers went into hiding. "You noticed?"

"Of course I noticed. You've never braided your hair before. Did Carmen do it?"

Her eyes went briefly to the ceiling before she nodded. "Yes."

With her hands folded in her lap, Esme looked so innocent. She shifted in her chair, her eyes like wide amber baubles, awaiting his approval.

"It's...befitting," he said with a crooked smile. 'Befitting' was perhaps the blandest adjective he could have used. If only he could think of a more appropriate word.

"You think so?" She almost looked like she did not believe him.

His smile widened to reassure her. "Ask anyone."

Her shoulders peaked as if she were suppressing a laugh of delight. "Thank you."

Her little reactions to his compliments were so strangely invigorating, they gave him such a tender rush. He was more than willing to enter shaky territory if it meant she would react like that.

"And..." he paused, swallowing hard, "the dress as well?"

Her gaze fell to the dress she wore, her lashes soft and heavy as they covered her eyes. She looked as though she were hiding a secret, and it made his stomach twirl with curiosity.

"I know it isn't exactly my style," she sighed, fingering the end of one wispy sleeve, "but Carmen did bring it for me, so I thought I'd try it on…just for tonight."

A tiny burst of frustration filled his chest at the thought that she might never wear that exquisite dress again. Lost to his whims, Carlisle nearly reached out to touch the fabric of that dress as he had moments ago reached out to touch her hair. Before he could do something so inappropriate, he curbed the urge by grabbing his knee instead.

"It looks lovely on you," he said, his voice so strained he sounded like a man being slowly crushed by a tremendous weight.

Esme's hands went to hug her arms in a habit of timidity, pushing her breasts slightly together. She tilted her head to look away from him, and with her braid tucked behind one shoulder, her neck had never before looked so deliciously exposed. She lifted one delicate leg to cross it over the other, her bare knee visible before she covered it conservatively with her sheer skirt. The candlelight made the airy fabric almost glow in an ethereal way, as if she were scantily draped in soft pink starlight.

Lord above, she looked positively divine in that dress.

He wanted to devour her in it.

"Thank you, Carlisle."

Her gentle words of thanks were like a punch to his gut. If she had known the true nature of his thoughts, she would never have thanked him.

The weight of her presence was never more pronounced than it was in that moment. Carlisle felt the waves of heat from the candle sliding across his skin, into his open collar, and down his chest. The confinement and warmth of the room was unbearable, and it made him delirious. Suddenly he felt the urgent need to do something bold, to make a drastic change, to cause _something _to happen between them.

His stomach was a boiling pit of courage and fear, mixing together in a fragile concoction that teetered between toxic and sweet. He had to plan his method of attack carefully if he wanted to make the moment count. He had to act fast, before he lost that brilliant bout of courage. He had a feeling his reward would outweigh the risk.

Without a thought, his hand drifted to the gramophone to change the track. The sweet, low strings of a familiar waltz quickly brought his senses back to reality.

"Did you dance often when you were growing up?" he blurted out, eyes fixed on the beautiful woman across from him.

Her fingers were still obsessively tangling in the end of her braid. When she heard his question, she firmly tore them away and focused on her answer. "I... I can't remember."

_Oh, she was not going to play this game again._

Feeling sly, Carlisle raised himself up in his seat, experimenting with muscles he was sure had gone slack. "I'm sure as a debutante you did."

"A...a debutante?" He saw a glimmer of curiosity and hope in her eyes, an impish dimple peeking out from her cheek. "I don't even know if I _was_ a debutante."

He stood from his chair, savoring the subtle shift of power as he came closer to her.

Like a poorly rehearsed nickelodeon theater line, he whispered drunkenly, "I certainly hope you were, because I'm about to ask you to dance."

Esme seemed to have no care as to how foolish the suggestion sounded, even when she saw his hand outstretched and waiting on the arm of her chair. Her eyes were suddenly struck with a gleeful panic as she whispered forcefully, "Right here?"

"We could use the ballroom, but thanks to you the walls still smell a bit too strongly of fresh paint."

She half-giggled at his comment and shook her head.

His hopes began to sink as he noticed she had made no move to take his hand. His fingers started to slink away, weakened by her apparent rejection.

"Do you think it awkward?" he asked, worried to hear her honest answer.

"No, not at all," she answered fast, standing up so quickly she nearly bumped into him. Her rosy scent hit him like the sweet blade of a dagger. "I'd love to try it."

She wavered a bit as she stood before him, emphasizing the generous gap of height between them.

Esme would expect him to begin the dance traditionally, and Carlisle knew there was only one proper way for a man to initiate a dance.

He had to reach forward and take her by the waist.

Months ago, such an expectation would have had him fleeing for the door. But now he sensed it was safe to do so _– _like reaching into a hornet's vacant nest during the dead of winter. There was still an echo of anxiety, but he knew deep down that the real danger was gone.

His chest tightened as he extended his hand once more in the hope that she would accept it all too willingly.

Instead, one of her fingers stroked a single, deliciously delicate line across the outside of his thumb.

"You've been taking notes again?" she nearly whispered.

His mind reeled for a moment, trying to decipher what her cryptic words meant. Then he looked down and saw where she was pointing.

Carlisle felt as if he'd just been caught without his clothes on.

"Oh..." he moaned in mortification, attempting to cover the spot of blue pen ink that marred the skin of his hand. "So often I forget it is there."

His skin prickled as he watched her mischievous smile spread.

"It's not a wonder. You write so much."

If only she knew just how much he wrote about _her._

Carlisle chuckled self-consciously, trying to mask the vivid embarrassment he felt at having her complete recognition of his secret passion.

"A year ago, Edward had taken to calling it 'the writer's bruise'," he recalled, trying to glean some humor out of the situation.

Looking down at the tender bluish purple marking now, Carlisle was impressed by just how accurate his son's harsh description had been. The longer he looked at it, the darker it seemed to get. In the background, he could hear Esme's charming laughter floating tauntingly around him.

Panic caused his voice to shudder as he started to pull his hand away. "Allow me to wash it first—"

His instinctive need to search for the nearest sink was cut short as Esme's silken skin collided with his once again.

"It doesn't bother me," she said sincerely, boldly uncovering the rest of the offensive marking. And not only did she look upon the ink with fondness, she even went so far as to draw his hand closer and closer toward her waist.

"But the ink – it may ruin your new dress," he tried to protest, albeit weakly.

Smarting pain filled the bones in his hand as he forced himself to withdraw from her guiding touch.

But Esme was determined to make the decision for him. Without a single hitch of hesitation, she squeezed his hand and placed it in that sacred crook of her waist, snug as a belt against her new dress.

"I love the color blue," she said with an enchanting little smile.

His heart almost exploded with glee.

Yet he was uncommonly nervous as he pressed his hand into her waist, watching as the ink from his hand rubbed off onto the satiny fabric. It ruined the pale mauve color, marring it with a rich cobalt shadow. It was twice as daunting to know the tighter he held her, the more damage he would do to her dress.

Esme didn't seem to care one bit.

The music still carried on around them, demanding a proper waltz.

Only now fully aware of the situation, Carlisle took hold of Esme's hand excitedly, like a crow snatching up a mouse from the ground before it could get away. Her hand somehow managed to sneak its way deeper into his, burrowing beneath his fingers as if seeking a place to hibernate.

Her fingers wriggled slightly in his firm grasp, a mild gesture of lost power. Carlisle savored the dose of confidence coming his way, even if he knew he was stealing it from Esme. It was such a beautiful little battle they played at whenever they were forced to touch one another.

Before they realized it, they were moving together, slowly and ethereally, as a pair of autumn leaves that whirl around one another in the wind, using each other as a tentative center of gravity.

Dancing provided him with so many glorious excuses by which to touch her in nearly every way he had imagined touching her. His fingers disguised themselves in innocence, brushing precariously along the edge of her hip, exploring the contours of her pliant skin, the curves of her feminine torso. Every dip and divot that made up the simplistic beauty of her waistline was fascinating to him. He could have let his hand live there forever, in the divine hourglass between her bust and her hip, just feeling, touching...

All the while she clung to his shoulder with one hand, which seemed to grow weaker by the moment.

The music was their guide, beginning slowly and patiently so as not to overwhelm the shy dancing couple. It tested them gently with a sparkle of piano keys, a flurry of anxious flutes, a calming wave of strings, and a soothing hum of the cello.

"It feels...melancholy," Esme sighed, her voice sounding thick and warm in the cool room. "The music, I mean."

"Yes, I suppose it does," Carlisle agreed.

His eyes strayed sinfully, giving in at last to the pressing knowledge that her breasts were mere inches away from his chest. Her skin appeared so soft, like a porcelain pillow, her flesh glowing a snowy pink. From his angle, he could see straight down the slender valley of her cleavage. He felt guilty when he saw the gentle way the fabric of her dress hugged her, attempting to protect her honor from his wandering gaze.

"Is it just me, or does it seem as if the room just got darker?" her voice pierced him like a dainty bullet, awakening him from a cruel fantasy.

He looked behind her just in time to see the lone flickering flame fade.

"The candle is dying down," he murmured, hoping his voice did not sound as sinisterly pleased as he thought it did.

"Oh."

One tiny word, but it spoke volumes to how she was feeling.

Nervous, most of all. Timid, like a newly hatched butterfly. But beneath her shy cocoon, Esme always had a clip of cleverness to her tone, to her eyes, and even to her touch.

She moved closer to him. It wasn't his imagination.

Was it something about the darkness that urged her to close more distance between their bodies?

He hoped so.

He hoped she felt same stirring sort of comfort he felt, being wrapped in this choking blanket of shadows. But he doubted that she felt the pressing danger of speaking bluntly once the light was dimmed, a danger he believed was likely only a weakness of his own.

A sensual storm was brewing in his heart, ready to free a monsoon of words which he was powerless to stop.

Like summer in the Amazon, it came, full and strong and relentless.

"I've been desperately missing our nights spent together in my study...when we could be alone."

For so vicious an urge, he was surprised that his words came forth sounding so calm. More like a gentle mist than a mighty monsoon.

Still, a single confession was not enough to sate the grounds. His private storm continued softly as he guided his dance partner in a slow circle around the center of the room.

"I miss free-writing, and watching you sketch, and reading books to you... I miss it."

Esme's eyes pierced through the dark gray clouds of his desire, like pinpoints of sunlight peeking through sheets of rain.

A rumble of warning thunder sounded in the recesses of his mind.

"So do I," she answered with a strange, bright giggle. It was not the response he was expecting, and it sent him reeling with tidal waves of pure delight.

"We're speaking about this as if it's something sinful," he said in a low voice, his glee heightening when she grinned.

"I just noticed that."

"It isn't as if we aren't allowed to still do it with guests in the house," he whispered, only noticing afterward how suggestive it sounded.

The sweet humidity of Esme's breath filled his nose as he carefully tugged her closer, making him lightheaded.

"Hmmm. True," she considered, cocking her head so that her silky braid slid across her bare shoulder. "But it wouldn't feel right, somehow."

He could feel himself nodding distantly, his tongue prone to slur the words that he planned to say next. "Part of me wants to keep it a secret from everyone else."

"So do I," she agreed quietly. "But it's silly. It isn't as if we're breaking any rules by writing and reading together," she pointed out, her voice musical and mischievous.

"No, of course not," he said quickly. "We shouldn't feel ashamed of that."

Esme looked down at the floor for a moment, then raised her eyes with secrets gleaming inside.

"It's not that I feel ashamed, per se..." she murmured throatily.

He hastily whispered, "Neither do I."

Her lips parted slowly. "It's more like..."

"I want it to stay this way..."

"Hidden."

"Just between us."

The chain of phrases they had so meticulously strung together repeated fully in his head. How appealing it sounded, that everything between them should remain a carefully bound secret. Everything they did should remain hidden, locked away from the rest of the world. Such delectable intimacy could only mean they were treading the gloriously thin line between friends and _partners._

As if they both understood this unspoken thought, they each offered a timid smile as they danced along to the subtly shifting notes of the waltz. A change in the mood was discernible only to the keenest of minds, but Carlisle picked it out long before it even set in.

Esme's calm smile suddenly became anxious. "Do you think Carmen can hear us? She's right upstairs."

It may have been wrong, but in that moment he didn't care if Carmen heard every sentence he uttered.

"Not if we speak quietly enough," he assured seductively.

He heard a soft gulping noise come from Esme's throat. "I think she'll hear us anyway."

Determined to melt her worries away, Carlisle stretched out his fingers to claim the velvety curve of her chin. Drawing her face upward, he made sure she was looking directly into his eyes. "She'll know when not to listen."

Somehow Esme seemed to take his words to heart. The wary glitter in her eyes smoothed into solid pools of amber. She went back to staring at the floor again while his hand traveled back to the blessed haven it had found in her waist.

Her soft dress fluttered around her body like morning mist. It was barely there, the gossamer fabric no thicker than a layer of frost that formed on the windows on a cold day. Just like frost, it too probably would have melted in the sun, it was so dreadfully thin. He had no clue what the fabric was even called; it was honestly closer in texture to flower petals than cotton or silk. He felt he could have pressed it to dust if he held her too tightly.

Carlisle's thoughts began drifting, sidetracked by the simplistic movements of his feet. Occasionally Esme's bare foot would graze against his, firm and soft. She would gasp a little at the contact, and she would smile as if she had done something naughty. He would grin out of her sight, enjoying the view from a safe distance above her while her hand continued to seek support from his shoulder. Soon her head joined her hand to rest against him, her body otherwise still as she settled into his arms, allowing him to lead the dance entirely.

Under his full command, the dance had acquired a strange feel to it, as if they were dancing on wet soil. It felt slightly uneven, unbalanced... but at the same time it was soothing and innocent, nearly childlike.

Just when he was beginning to think silence would rule their kingdom, Esme posed the most profoundly provocative question.

"I wonder what it would be like to dance every night."

Carlisle bit his lip, privately humored by another one of her remarkably unexpected comments. Deep down he thought it the most precious habit.

"What a romantic notion," he chuckled softly, becoming a bit shy as he considered the alternate meaning behind her words. "If I'm being honest, I think I'd grow tired of it and long for something different."

He had hoped his unfazed response would inspire her to move on from the conversation, but it seemed to do nothing but encourage her.

"It depends on what kind of dancing we would be doing." Her words were muffled in the cotton shirt he wore, just as they would have sounded if she had been speaking from beneath a bed sheet.

His belly felt a reckless blaze of heat. "What other kind of dancing is there?"

He heard the breath tighten in her throat before she could release it. Speechless for a second, her fingers gripped his upper arm as she whispered dreamily, "I...don't know..."

In moments, their dance had become nothing more than an infinitesimal sway as the music stretched through the final movement of the waltz. Esme had gone utterly still in his arms.

Reluctantly, he opened his hands, releasing her body which he had been so keen on possessing. "What is the matter?"

"Hm?" She jerked slightly in his hold, as if awakening from sleep.

"You've stopped moving," he said dubiously, wondering if he had somehow thrown her off.

Her face and body language were disturbingly distant as she rearranged herself to be less dependent on him. "Oh. I don't know," she said, straightening out as she tried to claim her own balance. "I feel strange."

Intrigued, Carlisle ducked his head, straining to view the half-hidden expression on her face. "Strange? How?"

She looked up at him then, her eyes glossy, her lips flushed.

"You know the feeling you get when you stand too close to a fire?"

He nodded slowly but eagerly, though the blunt beauty of such a poetic question had his heart on the edge of a sword.

"That is how I feel right now," she said weakly, her eyes touring the features of his face one by one. "I feel a little bit like...like I need to run away before I burn."

Oh, what a mystery she begged him to solve! His mind was twisted with the puzzle she had laid out before him. Just a few sentences, yet they held more weight than the most clever of riddles for him.

"Would you really run away from me, Esme?" he asked brokenly.

"No," she all but hissed, her lips ripe with honesty. "I don't want to run away from _you_."

There was no closure to the softly spoken sentence, and it made him wild with the need to hear more. He could barely find his own voice as he struggled to ask her the dreaded question.

"Then what is it you're running from?"

A world of uncertainty churned behind her eyes as she shook her head, and a long whispery sigh fled her lips like a winter breeze.

"I don't know." She swallowed hard as the gramophone murmured the last scraps of sweet music before fading out. "Something else. Something I don't yet understand, I think."

In the scratching silence of the dim room, Carlisle could only marvel at how very uncannily Esme's confusion matched his own.

"There are many things I do not understand either, Esme," he offered, hoping their joint perplexities would provide them with some shared sensation of peace.

But all it did was open another door to another daunting dimension.

"Yet we accept them without question," Esme said darkly, a beautiful philosophical glint in her eyes.

"I have done so all my life," Carlisle whispered, his lips drifting closer to hers of their own accord.

She stared at his mouth for a split second, teary-eyed while he gently squeezed her waist between his fingers. "I wish it were not so."

"Then perhaps you will be the first to change it," he sighed as he bowed his head and stroked his nose against her delicate temple.

He grasped her tightly, his arms feeling particularly generous knowing this may be their last time to hold her so closely for a long while. He held her tightly enough that he was sure their souls had brushed against each other, then he let her go.

Although there were thousands of unspoken answers he hadn't yet claimed, Carlisle felt that his contentment in that moment ran as deep as the deepest point in the ocean.

And as blue as the ocean was the single, significant smudge he had left on the curve of her waist. He no longer felt the urge to write when he saw the ink there, on the pale rosy gauze of her dress. He had left his mark, and there it would stay. Somehow he was sure of it.

"Thank you for the dance."


	34. Forever's Final Hour

**Forever's Final Hour**

_This is the entirety of Chapter 55: The Final Symbol from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

The morning Carmen and Eleazar left, Carlisle felt a restoration of balance in the air. It seemed a tiny bit cruel to him that he regarded their departure with such relief, but the truth of the matter was, inviting them to share his house at the present time was not the best decision he had made. At least Esme seemed to have enjoyed their company. If there was one positive thing that had come from their visit, it was seeing Esme's joy at having guests around.

In hindsight, there was no way he could have foreseen what his life would be like when he first invited them to come. He had no way of knowing that his relationship with Esme would be teetering on the fragile precipice of pleasantly platonic and dangerously intimate. It was indeed a strange pattern they practiced together. Once the Denali couple was off his property, Carlisle immediately felt the sweet strain returning to his heart with a loaded force. With Edward scampering off to classes and hunting trips and independent archery experiments every day, Carlisle began to wonder if the house would ever feel like it once had. Chartercrest mansion was no longer a cold, lonely place to live. It was warm, almost cozy, despite its grand size. He knew that being alone with Esme made it feel that way to him. When they were alone in the house, he felt that they were much more than friends. They were more than _family_ when they were alone.

But being alone with Esme now presented him with a perplexing problem. After being immersed in Carmen and Eleazar's company, the transition from a full house to a mostly empty house with two or sometimes three occupants was a little shaky. Carlisle had a difficult time thinking up ways in which he could comfortably ease back into the closeness he'd achieved with Esme, without making it awkward for her.

It would be ideal to simply walk up to her, snatch her hand, tug her into his study, and make her sit there for the rest of the night by his side. But he still did not feel comfortable with such a brash approach. The unpredictability of her reactions still frightened him sometimes.

He could have asked her what she thought of the Denalis, or when she thought she would like to visit them in Alaska. But that conversation would lead to discussions of her future, and he knew how nimble he had to be when taking up that topic with Esme.

She had progressed so much in just the last few months, but the waters shouldn't be stirred too much yet. He was going to take things slowly while he still had the strength to do it.

That afternoon Carlisle could think of nothing to say to Esme after Carmen and Eleazar left. Silence was his only solution. He would let her come to him, or wait until the distance between them was too much for him to bear.

In the meantime, filling a few pages of his journal always gave him an enriching way to spend a morning without her.

The pen he wrote with was too heavy, so he switched to a feather quill halfway through his entry.

_Esme,_

_Your name is like sugar to the man with the sweetest tooth. Your name makes me ill if I dare to whisper it too many times beneath my breath. I become lightheaded with desire, frenzied with fever. Your name is even more beautiful in the deepest hours of darkness that linger between the dusk and dawn. But, I must confide, it is too painful to speak it in this mood of night. If you were to accidentally hear me as I said your name in this way, I fear you would be far more than alarmed, my innocent Esme. It is with shameful regret that I must make this request of you: Do not listen to me in the night. Protect your ears from my obscene experimentation. I must speak your name but a few times and I will be satisfied. I will whisper it to the fire, whose flames will protect my voice with hot whispers of their own. But know that the heat of these flames will never rival the heat in my voice when I say your name . . . Esme._

_I am eager, trembling, waiting for you. The gentle sounds of your voice are coating my heart like ink coats a page – and my heart drinks your voice greedily, like parchment soaking in the colors._

_I will touch myself and envision your hand in disguise as my own. Sometimes I am afraid of myself when I become this way. These thoughts have changed me, Esme – and not in so many honorable ways. I am not this man by day – this I will swear. In fact I now believe that I have never been this kind of man before I met you. _

_I can fully imagine you as my pure, beaming bride. You are a vision, Esme. One fabricated image and my thoughts are tumbling in my head as I yearn for sleep to embellish them. I am beside myself when I drag out this dream, extending beyond our vows on an altar, eagerly rushing past the niceties of the ceremony so that I might stumble blindly into our first night together. I know that my terror does not come from you, but rather from my own doubtful heart. I fear that I will love you like a savage, my sweet, meek, gentle Esme. God has narrated the entirety of my life, yet he does not seem to narrate this scene. I am on my own as I stand, face to face with you, beside our wedding bed. And these words like 'our' and 'us' and 'we' have scorched my tender soul. I shall loathe these words until we have made ourselves one, for only then can I allow myself to taste their sweetness without choking on their bitter aftertaste. _

_I would part my lips for you like I would for holy water. I have never seen your body bare before, but I believe my sturdy palms to be a perfect fit for the small of your back. I have crushed my pillow too many times envisioning it. But I promise, you would not be crushed if I held you, Esme. _

_I have very thoroughly mapped out our love. I must lay a belt of warm kisses about your waist. Adorn your forehead in a veil of chaste caresses. Draw a bodice across your breasts with my tongue. Coat your slender arms in sleeves painted by my lips.. A glove for your hand, a garter for your thigh. A pair of stockings for your beautiful legs. I cannot sew, but I can lick. I must dress you warmly, my love, for I foresee it will be a cold night that awaits us. Trust that my venom burns strongly enough to keep you warm._

_I would be an attentive lover, a passionate lover, but not a distracted one. No, I would be deliberate and honest, and utterly vulnerable when you wished me to be. Our love could consist of only our voices, dueling gently in the night __as the Song of Solomon dictates_. I would trade my whispers for yours, and you would conquer me in your softness, my love, I am sure of it. I would reward you with a steely kiss, and you would melt against me. Only when you grant me permission will I at last weld my soul to yours as I have desired for so long. And so we come to face another fear of mine: that I will never find the strength to withdraw from your embrace. 

_At this moment – God willing it shall come to pass – I will plead with you to let me stay forever. I will implore you with eyes and lips and touch, and you will not have the heart to resist me. You are too kind to refuse me this, sweet Esme. If I asked it of you, I believe you would let me stay forever, linked to you in body and soul until the end of eternity. _

_One hundred times as tempting this is for us._

_Because for us, it is possible. _

The practice did not even feel sinful anymore. It was just another part of his day. It was ingrained into his schedule, an instinct, an urge he had to satisfy. He spoke to Esme's heart through his writing, and he did it in perfect silence...save for the smooth scratch of ink point on paper.

It was his soul's favorite lullaby.

But he still tossed and turned all night long.

How ridiculous that he had taken this long to realize suppression hurt him more than helped him. It shouldn't have taken Eleazar's forwardly implicating comments to open his eyes.

Carlisle _was _a doctor. He should have had some idea of how a woman's brain worked. But no matter how much he discovered about her, Esme still remained a mystery to him.

Even when she asked him to walk with her outside that afternoon, he wondered what her reasoning was. He was nervous for the discussion he knew would follow her invitation. No walk in the garden could be free of philosophical filigree when they were together.

Something about the scent of rain-bathed flowers made his desire to hang on her every word even greater.

Happily he followed in Esme's footsteps, like a sheep loyally treading on the ankles of his shepherdess wherever she went. His brain relished in not having to think, not having the stress of choosing which path to follow. It could be very confusing in this garden, especially when there was mist in the air. He could not deny himself the subtle delight of letting Esme guide _him _for a change.

She discussed shallow items of interest with him, mostly her renovation plans for the rest of the statues that decorated the garden. He lost track of how many still needed to be restored. In his opinion, they were very beautiful as they were _– _raw, aged, chipped, cracked, full of flaws _– _just like him. He wondered if he were posed there among the roses in statue form, would Esme see fit to restore him as well?

He could swear he heard the stones groaning beneath his feet.

"Just imagine how beautiful it will look when it's all finished," Esme sighed, staring proudly up and down the path of time-worn statuary.

"Mmhm."

Esme's face turned down as she walked ahead of him, her perfect bare feet barely touching the stony ground. He hoped his noncommittal responses hadn't been offending her. It wasn't _his_ fault that the sway of her hips as she walked was so distracting.

He ran a hand through his hair and breathed deeply. He was tired of having nothing to say. He had only half an hour before he had to leave for the hospital. He had to make something of their time together.

"You seemed to be getting along quite well with Carmen," he said as a start to a conversation.

Esme sounded happy that he was talking. "I admit it was nice to have another woman around for a while." Her footsteps picked up their pace, and he wondered why she suddenly felt the need to walk faster.

He struggled slightly to keep up with her without seeming invasive. "How did you like her?"

The curiosity in his voice was blatant, and it made him cringe a little. Esme, however, seemed unaffected by it. "Oh, she couldn't have been lovelier," she said softly, sincerely. She slowed just enough to glance up at him, as if gauging his expression before she spoke. "I was a bit jealous, though."

_Jealous?_

The word was slippery and strange coming from Esme's mouth. He hadn't imagined someone like Esme could harbor such a feeling. And for what reason?

Had he heard wrong?

He narrowed his eyes and stopped in the middle of the path. "Pardon?"

Esme stopped as well, staring up at him without a flinch in her face. "Jealous."

Weakened by confusion, all he could do was repeat the word. "Jealous?"

Esme's eyes were unwavering. She was not even embarrassed by it...which meant it must not have been the kind of jealousy he was thinking about.

His chest relaxed a bit. They were back to the same old conversation, the same old insecurity. He could deal with 'the same old'.

"Ah, because she can travel the country freely without worrying over blood-lust. Is that it?"

The tension crept back into his muscles when Esme looked down at the ground. "Not exactly."

Without warning she began to press onward, leaving him behind. He didn't attempt to follow her this time. Instead, he simply called out after her.

"Then why?" He had to know.

Her insecure words came to him, muffled on the breeze. "She's far prettier than I am."

A modest choking sound came out of Carlisle's throat. It was just as he'd feared.

Esme whipped around to look at him, her eyes like daggers. "Don't you think she's beautiful?"

Suddenly he felt very targeted by their conversation. Was this some kind of test she had devised for him?

He shuffled his hands and looked anywhere but at Esme's face. Images of Carmen's lovely Spanish physique danced around in his mind, but none of them were as daunting nor as appealing as the one right in front of him. "Well, she is a very...kind woman."

Esme was insistent. "Physically, Carlisle. Physically."

He knew the answer in his heart. Yes, Carmen was very physically attractive. He'd thought so from the first time he saw her. But how could he tell Esme this without making her upset?

The only way was to avoid a clear answer. "Ehm... She is the wife of another man, and I don't..."

"For God's sake, Carlisle!" she burst out, her voice like shattering glass in the silent garden. He jumped. "Can you not admit to finding beauty in a woman?"

His face froze, his heart clenched, and his legs stiffened. As a man who found beauty in almost everything, Carlisle wondered how Esme could be so brash in her accusations. Her outburst had put him on the spot, but it did anything but threaten him. Deep down, he saw it as his only chance to make her see the truth.

Such an opportunity...if only she would not be blind enough to miss it.

"I find beauty in _you_."

A hollow sensation trickled into his chest as he said the words, leaving him with an empty feeling as he stood, no more than another statue in the garden.

Esme's eyes were convinced, but her voice was not. "You're just saying that to...calm me down."

She was so hopeless.

"Why would I be dishonest about something like that?" He dared to step forward.

Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips bunched together, a lovely look of insecurity on her face. "I don't know. To make me happy?"

His pity turned swiftly to aggravation. "I must say, it's not like you to become so bothered over something as insignificant as appearances." He crossed his arms.

The look of fear that passed over her eyes made him regret using such a firm tone with her. "I don't know what came over me," she murmured, touching her forehead with shaky fingers. "I've been feeling a lot of strange emotions lately. I suppose it's just... I haven't been around another female in such a long time." Her eyes dropped shyly to her body, as if assessing the curves and lines of her waist and hips from the awkward angle. "And Carmen is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life."

She was always putting him on the spot.

How relentless could one innocent young woman be?

Before he could think of a reasonable reply, she had lifted her walls. "But listen to me – you must have seen hundreds of female vampires in your years – I'm sure each one was more like a goddess than the last."

With her harsh words lingering in the air, she whipped around to face the fountain, arms folded over her breasts as she turned her back on him. There was an unforgiving nature to her stance, but it was not intended for him. She was unforgiving of herself, which was even worse.

Her statement seemed incredibly ironic when she looked more like a goddess herself, standing with her perfect feminine physique framed by sprinkling sheets of silver fountain water and budding yellow roses.

Somehow he broke his silence with a dose of gentle understanding.

"Esme, how can you compare yourself to women you've never even seen or spoken with before?"

His genuine curiosity was sliced in half as she offered a brutal truth in reply.

"We women are petty like that sometimes."

The bitterness in her voice churned his stomach.

"You're anything but petty, Esme," he fought her, accidental passion invading his tone.

"Then why do I feel this way?" she reeled, staring desperately up at the clouds, her hands clutching her skirt. "Like I'm always wishing to be everyone but myself?"

She was not the only one who was dumbfounded.

"I don't know, but you should never wish for such a thing," he told her as he walked up behind her, intent on killing every inch that kept them apart. "If anything, everyone else should be wishing they were more like _you_."

Her face lowered as she stared straight ahead, and with her back still turned to him, he felt a burning need to see how her expression had changed in response to his words. He wanted to see it in her eyes when she had a change of heart. But she showed him nothing yet. Only the back of her head, the elegant jut of shoulder blades, and the coppery waves of caramel hair that draped over her creamy skin.

"You're the one everyone wants to be like, Carlisle," she whispered solemnly. Her praise was nothing new to him, but it still lit a candle of appreciation in his soul. "Our whole town admires you. There are hundreds of people all across the globe that once knew your name. No more than four people now know that I even exist."

Her tactless comparisons cut deep into his heart. How could she fail to see that they were all lies?

"But those four people who _do_ know you can see that you are a beautiful person," he countered roughly.

Once again, he wondered if the vague roughness in his voice had inspired a change in her eyes.

He wanted to see it. It was so unfair that she should keep hiding those precious inflections from him. Her every expression was _his _to keep, _his _to see if he so desired.

She had no right to hide from him.

With a slow and gentle willpower, he gripped her hand and made her turn around. He let her control the pace at which she surrendered, but he would not take no for an answer.

"But if I may be even more honest, your physical beauty _pales_ in comparison to the beauty of your heart," he told her. "By that alone I can safely say you are among the most beautiful vampires I've come to know."

There it was.

His soul sighed in deep satisfaction, his heart sung in his chest. Her eyes changed so fluidly as he spoke to her, reflecting his brutal sincerity back to him through the dimming windows of her gaze. Her lips parted, glinting and pink, trembling like a child left outside on a frigid night.

"Carlisle," she said softly. His name was a shy cross between a whimper of pleasure and a plea for help.

Only Esme could say his name this way. Only she could bathe it so generously with her fragile feminine tongue. It was strong enough to make his knees buckle and a wave of virile warmth strike his heart. But he steeled himself, rooted his body to the spot. He had to be strong when she was watching him.

As usual one word from her opened the floodgates, and he ran loose without a bridle to restrain his thoughts before they married his voice.

"You are beautiful, Esme. You are a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart." The words felt hard as they left his tongue, but he was sure the tenderness in his face was undeniable to her. She was too keen to misread his true intentions. "Don't make me remind you of that ever again."

After all his words had been said, he left. He turned away from her and walked in the opposite direction, smooth and collected.

She did not follow him right away, and his terrified him. He hardly knew why he did it. He was as unpredictable as she was in moments like this.

But it was not cowardice which convinced him to leave her this time. No, this time it was something deep and fulfilling. It had to be done, even if he did not yet understand why.

The urge to escape flowed freely through his body, conquering him limb by limb as he carried through the motions of preparing to leave his house. Briefcase locked, shoes buckled, jacket on.

She was right there. He stopped, turned around, and was engulfed by the light of her blinding beauty.

"I think you're the only person who has ever been sincere when you call me beautiful." Her words brought to mind the cruel past she had been made to suffer.

A fierce storm of feelings filled him _– _some evil, some pure. They were overpowering, but he was strong enough to tame them.

"You are worth so much more than you give yourself credit for, Esme," he whispered, reveling in the delicate balance between standing solid and melting into her adoring eyes. "Sometimes I think you choose to be blind to that."

Her lips fell open and her eyes went dangerously wide. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes," he answered forcefully. She flinched, her face oddly pleased. "But I cannot understand how you could ever think someone to be insincere when they say you are beautiful."

Anger, he felt, had dominated his voice _– _and it was a shame for his words were meant to be kind and wholesome. He needed her to know that his anger was not directed at her, but rather at every being on earth who had failed to show her how beautiful she really was.

With no more than a tiny gasp from her, Carlisle felt an avalanche of that anger slipping away, melting under the heat of his love for her.

"Even as a young girl, you were radiant," he recalled, aware that such a remark was likely to be taken too intimately.

He didn't give a damn.

Neither did Esme, apparently.

"I feel like I have wings," she almost giggled, her face so full of joy that she looked devastated.

He wanted to make her look that way every time he spoke to her.

He wanted to make her _feel _that way every time he looked at her.

"I hoped you would," he whispered warmly, tugging the reins on a crescendo of raw emotion that blazed just behind his calm façade.

If she had wings, he wanted to be the one to help her fly.

Somehow he managed to lift his jacket over his shoulders. Somehow he forced himself to turn away from her radiance and face the world that lay beyond their home.

Just before he took the first step, her fingertips burned around his wrist.

"Hurry back?" Her plea echoed like a prayer.

How he resisted touching his lips to hers every time they parted, he'll never know.

"I always do."

******-}0{-**

His nights had never been more fulfilling.

For years, Carlisle had found the night to be infused with emptiness and loneliness. The two concepts became inseparable until Edward came along. Then the night was a time of intense conversation, a time to ponder the mysteries of life through philosophical feedings and probing questions.

Now a new spring had sprung before his very eyes. His nights were instead infused with feverish excitement and a distinct feminine warmth. The flowers that bloomed just outside his study windows were eerily awake during the night, always peeking through the glass from their swaying vines. The tiny buds had spent all winter long in slumber, only to wake with the coming of spring for a most surprising sight. Lo and behold, they now found the lonesome blond doctor sharing his most personal space with a strange yet lovely woman. Even the plants growing outside Carlisle's study were surprised and delighted to see him coming out of his shell in Esme's presence.

Before Esme came along, reading and writing as his desk was just a mundane part of his daily ritual. Now it was a blessing to escape for those precious hours of darkness as the sun rested, letting his words seize him by the wrist and run away with him. All because he knew Esme was watching his every move.

Carlisle was convinced there was no better place to be than seated at his desk with a book splayed out in front of him, like a wanton woman waiting for him to ravage her.

_A tiny droplet of water clings precariously to the tip of a verdant leaf just beyond the glass. It slips, struggles, then silently falls. From the corner of my eye, I watch it tumble through the unsoiled air until it disappears under the frame of the window, continuing its sluggish descent behind the wall._

_I listen to it meet the grass with a steady kiss, wishing I might melt into you the same way this pretentious raindrop has melted into the earth. By the end of summer, a flower will grow from that very spot in the ground. Just the same, I know that if I could melt into you, Esme, something beautiful would grow from our union._

"What are you writing?"

Esme's question would not have been so shocking to him, if he had in fact been writing.

But he had not been writing – at least not visibly. He _had,_ however, been thinking about what he would write next in the pages of his journal.

Somehow, Esme must have sensed the words creeping into his subconscious. She could see that he was writing in his head, even when the only hint came from the fountain pen he habitually pressed to his lip while in deep thought.

"I wasn't writing," he murmured, setting down his pen as if to clear the evidence. "Well, I had been for a while, but just now I was reading."

He quickly looked over the words on the page that happened to be open in front of him. Casually he draped his hand over the page, hoping to curb Esme's suspicions for why he would be so consumed with the book's table of contents.

"Oh?" She raised an intrigued eyebrow. "What were you reading, then?"

He felt a little shy all of a sudden. "One of my newer books. Poetry."

Her eyes blinked and widened. "Read me something."

He knew she would ask.

Grinning to himself, he began to flip through the pages of his book, searching for the poem he had been planning to share with her.

"Shall I read the poem that reminds me of you?"

"Please," she sighed breathily, settling back into her chair like a child waiting for her bedtime story.

"Very well." He tilted the book toward him and cleared his throat. "It's titled 'The Fly.'"

Feeling the distinct burn of her gaze on his face, he found his voice to have little more than an indistinguishable tremor as he recited the poem for her.

_"How large unto the tiny fly_  
_Must little things appear:_  
_A rosebud like a feather bed,_  
_Its prickle like a spear;_

_A dewdrop like a looking-glass,_  
_A hair like golden wire;_  
_The smallest grain of mustard-seed_  
_As fierce as coals of fire;_

_A loaf of bread, a lofty hill;_  
_A wasp, a cruel leopard;_  
_And specks of salt as bright to see_  
_As lambkins to a shepherd."_

He could feel her joy radiating from across his desk between each line, her recognition of those little descriptions that captured her antics so accurately. Esme saw the world as a child saw it. Carlisle had never met anyone who was as truly aware of how great and magnificent and awe-inspiring the world was in comparison to one tiny person.

He looked up at her when there were no more words for him to read, and he noticed that sparkle of wonder and awe in her eyes. At that moment, it was as if she found _him _to be as great and magnificent as the world.

Her lips curved in a smile. She giggled lightly, and she surprised him with a teasing remark. "I certainly hope you are hinting at my insatiable curiosity and not my diminutive size, Carlisle."

He laughed – hard. He could barely recall the last time he had felt such intense relief from laughter. His chest felt wide and open, and his lungs were delightfully weak and tired when it was through.

She still smiled as she stared at him. Her eyes wandered from his face to his chest, as if she were concerned for the strain his laughter imposed on the rest of his body. She seemed happy for him to have this release, not so much stunned as she was flowing with joy while she watched him express his amusement in this way he almost never did.

Esme may have been small, but her endless curiosity and creativity made her seem much greater. Carlisle settled back in his chair and quietly relived his private memories of her exploring the world after her transformation.

"Oh, those first few days were wondrous for you, weren't they?" he sighed aloud.

She mirrored his relaxed position, somehow looking even more vulnerable with her neck tilted back, away from him. "Yes, they were."

"I remember as I watched, wishing I could have had such an experience during my first days, exploring nature like that." As odd as he felt admitting such personal things to her, he was addicted to the feeling. "I never had the time to be fascinated by my senses after the transformation. I suppose I simply...adjusted to them after a time. Mostly I was just...afraid."

Her eyes glistened with pity, an expression that artfully emphasized the meekness of her features. "I still don't know how you did it alone."

"The transformation itself is always the worst part." He nervously twisted his fingers together in the hidden space between his desk drawer and his lap where she could not see. "I was so relieved when it finally ended." His voice became softer against his will. "I'd feared I would be feeling that forever."

"So did I," Esme said. She had admitted it freely, and he found such comfort in the mere fact that she felt the same way as he did. "I remember seeing some strange things while the change was happening."

The words _'strange things' _sparked his interest.

"Anything in particular?"

He felt he had to treat the situation very delicately, as one handles an insect who can be so easily frightened away. After all, he had just compared Esme to the tiny fly. The last thing he wanted was for her to flitter away.

Her pretty face crinkled in thought. "Hmmm... Well, there was something..." She paused and bit her lip. "A vision I had, just before I woke up…right before I remember seeing you again." When she looked back at him, a strange sensation began to build inside of him, like a solid block of ice was starting to melt. Her eyes glittered like the facets of a gemstone in firelight as her small, elegant hands struggled to match gestures for her words. "It was...a red blossom of some kind. It looked almost like it was trying to consume me. It was reaching for me. A strange rose..."

The block of ice inside of him was already a puddle.

"Did you say a rose?" he stopped her, breathless.

She shrugged, clearly not aware of why her description had brought his intensity to a peak. "Well, it could have been a rose. It resembled a flower. It was bright red, and there were...petals."

From her mild description, a brilliant garden of roses burst behind his eyes – an illusion so painfully real and familiar, he could have sworn he'd walked its path before. He had lost himself in this garden too many times. It was a dangerous, seductive place that no man could point to on a map of the earth. It was a separate dimension, reserved only for those who were weak enough to seek out its gates.

A rose was a rather ambiguous symbol, but he could not help wondering if Esme's vision had some celestial link to his subconscious. Could she be the answer to his longing, the destination he sought in this confusing garden of desires? Could she be _his _rose?

The briefest flash of her body laying among the roses stole his breath away. In less than an instant he heard her begging whisper: _"Unlock me." _

If he squeezed his eyes shut, he could still see the lingering silhouette of the final symbol he had seen during his transformation.

A bright, golden skeleton key.

Lo and behold, Esme's words made a splash of sense when he pieced the two pictures together.

_Unlock me..._

Carlisle swallowed hard and looked away from Esme's innocent face, seeking familiarity and stability in the regimented rows of bookshelves that lined his study walls.

"That _is_ strange," he conceded, his voice raspy.

His hands instinctively gripped his thighs as she leaned closer, her breasts brushing the surface of his desk as she bent across it.

"What do you think it could mean?"

Her need to whisper delighted him.

"Well, I don't know," he played along, just as furtive and sly. "The final symbol is different for all of us."

She tilted her head to the side. "Final symbol?"

"Yes, the final hallucination," he explained patiently. "The very last image we see before we wake from the transformation."

Esme shifted in her chair and tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear, never tearing her eyes away from him. "All vampires see something like this?"

"All whom I've spoken to, yes," he said warily, knowing his theory was hardly proven.

"What did _you _see?"

He knew Esme to be forward in her questions, but this he simply was not expecting.

He mumbled indecisively until she relieved him of his answer.

"You don't have to tell me if you would rather not."

It hurt him that she looked so disappointed.

He wrung his hands. "No, I... It's just that I've never told anyone. Edward is the only one who knows."

He chanced a peek at her face, hating the way she always seemed to look even more beautiful when she shared his distress. Unable to bear the redness of her lips or the length of her eyelashes, he burrowed his gaze in the pages of his poetry book and waited for her predictable response.

"I understand."

He knew she was being truthful. The overwhelming love he felt for her as a friend right then was incredible. He was almost tempted to damn his secrets and spill them all without a thought.

But thankfully, Esme provided the perfect distraction to protect him from doing just that.

"Read me more poetry...please."

She looked sleepy as she leaned back in her chair and waited expectantly for him to obey her request.

He always did.

He read fairytales in dozens of languages, and used mildly flirtatious nicknames, and made significant eye contact for longer than was appropriate – all because Esme inspired him to do it.

All night long, he humored her every whim. He touched her when given the chance – just a pat on her forearm or a quick squeeze of her hand. He even allowed her to place her feet on his beneath the desk. Neither of them showed to be affected by the secretive touching, but they both clearly knew it was happening, and they prolonged it for as long as possible.

Meanwhile, outside, the slow arrival of dusk painted the clouds with lazy streaks of bright purple and dewy gold. The clouds bled into one another with their heavenly colors, cumulus beneath cirrus, like fluffy quilts beneath silky sheets. In the sky he saw a royal bedding in which he wished he could lay down and sleep by Esme's side.

"Carlisle...?"

The night must have left him exhausted, because he could not even muster the strength needed to respond out loud. All he could do was look at _her – _a porcelain pale heart-shaped face framed by glossy auburn curls, and a pair of wide, rusty golden eyes that tempted him to drown. Looking at her was enough.

She looked nervous, but not uncomfortable. He guessed that whatever she had to say must have been very important, so he listened carefully.

"Would you say that, lately, you've felt more comfortable talking with me about more...intimate subjects?"

His heart climbed up into his throat.

Miraculously, he had the nerve to toss the question back at her. "You think what we discuss in here is intimate?"

Her eyes latched onto his almost violently. "I think that the things we have discussed together have become more...personal as time wears on."

Something about the way she said it haunted him. It was like she had just murmured an irreversible curse.

But he wasn't so sure he was discontent with being the victim.

"What are you really asking me, Esme?" he probed gently.

The intensity in her eyes pierced him. "I want to know something."

Excitement whittled away at his control, forcing his words to come out shaky when he spoke.

"Ask, and I shall answer."

She taunted him with a pause, and a delicate but deep breath.

"When you saw me...that night in the morgue..."

Dizziness seized him, compelling his hand to cover his brow. He hid his eyes from her purposefully, knowing she was not ready to see the fire of emotional turmoil that soiled his gaze when he thought of that day...

But he could not tame this determined woman, no matter how many times he hid in the shadows.

"What did you do? What happened?" The questions poured from her lips like they had been trapped behind bars for years. "Did you just decide to...to run off with a dead woman's corpse, and—"

He interrupted her before she could drive the knife in any deeper. "Please try and understand, Esme. I was very much in a crisis to begin with that night. Suicides had become increasingly common that season, and I had already lost several patients for reasons that could have been prevented."

He still couldn't look her in the eyes, but he could tell she was trying to make him do just that.

"But you never took _their _bodies back to your home in the middle of the night."

Then he could no longer bear to keep his eyes off her.

"I could hear your heart beating," he whispered, with a reverence that would have made even the most pious preacher burn with embarrassment.

Her lovely lower lip fell open, her eyes wide and relaxed, for once devoid of any questions. With her looking so passive and shocked, he simply had to tell her more.

"I knew you were still alive, and I couldn't leave you like that no matter how hopeless your condition seemed."

He was stunned to find his voice so calm. Everything in the room seemed to settle, like a wild ocean at rest after a violent storm.

"I'd recognized you the second they pulled the sheet from over your face. Lord, Esme, you were so broken..." The fluttering lights of his desk candles hypnotized him into a gentle daydream as he half-closed his eyes and reached across to take hold of her cold little hand. "You were covered in bruises, caked in blood, but I knew you. I knew your name, your face, your scent. It felt as though we had never parted after all those years. It felt like I'd never left you."

Her eyes were so enraptured, her expression so consumed. Her fingers gripped his wrist tightly as he held her, the way ivy clings to the strong base of a tree branch. He truly felt as if he were feeding her with his words, nourishing her with every secret recollection he shared. The more he revealed from that night, the closer he felt to her.

"There was a storm that day, and the electricity had gone out in the hospital. It was a sign for me, I knew it was; I barely gave it a second thought. So I rushed down to the morgue while everyone else was panicking, and I took your body and carried you home with me." He couldn't stop the fond smile that crossed his face at the memory. "As you can imagine, Edward was impressively furious with me."

She barely managed a smile in return, her focus too deep to break with simple humor.

He knew what part of the story came next. It was useless to prolong it.

His muscles tightened all across his body as he bowed his head, keeping their eyes locked steadily no matter how nervous it made him.

"I took you upstairs...and placed you on the bed..."

His words heated the entire room, laced with a terrible gentleness only a lover should hear. Breath caught and gazes darkened. In Esme's eyes he saw a fantasy shattered, both of them knowing too well the morbid turn this seemingly romantic story would take.

"I realize now that deep down I had already made my decision. But I thought I could help you still." His words hastened with passion before the glow faded again. "I thought I could keep you from dying at all, if I'd just tried a little harder. But it was your time."

He stared through her eyes as if they were protected by a thin layer of glass. All that kept him from diving headfirst into her soul were the tears that blotted her precious gold.

"I have no regrets, Esme. None." He rejoiced in his bravery to say the words with force. She did not cower, for she sensed his passion was pure of intention. "Selfishly, I have no regrets for bringing you into this life. I know that asking you to say the same is a disgracefully foolish thing to ask. But you cannot deny that something about this was meant to be."

He boldly moved his fingers over her knuckles, reveling in the blessedly smooth skin. It felt so good to know her hand was being warmed by his. He wanted to remind her where that warmth was coming from.

Esme must have felt the fine kiss of destiny on her cheek, for the light in her eyes shone brighter than ever before. "My regrets grow fewer by the day, Carlisle."

No words could have given him greater relief, save for the ones that followed.

"Sometimes I wonder what my life right now would be like if you hadn't been the one to change me," she mused, and he was wildly happy when she shivered in fear at the thought. "It terrifies me whenever I try to imagine it."

The pangs of her trembling voice curdled inside his heart, making his chest tighten and his eyes burn with unshed tears.

"It terrifies me, too," he whispered roughly, determined that she _feel _his sincerity as well as hear it. "Imagine instead what a wonderful future you will have with Edward and me."

Inspired by her beautiful vulnerability, Carlisle cupped both her hands in his, wrapping them tightly with his fingers so he could feel all of her at once. As he held her hands, he thought of all they could do together, all that they could achieve, all that they could overcome. All that kept them from living out this dream was a single shared confession.

******-}0{-**

He listened to her play the harp every evening.

Sometimes, after his long shift at the hospital was over, he could hear the sounds of Esme's harp streaming up the road as he steered his car towards the house. The music she made enticed him to drive faster through the rough forest roads.

When he finally reached the house, he would linger outside by the window to the music room with his hands in his pockets, watching her. He always felt a staggering jolt of longing course through him at the sight. She was so distracted, so absorbed in her playing that she did not even pause to notice she was being watched. Still, he was careful to be discreet. If she happened to look up, he would pretend to be busy inspecting the façade of the house or adjusting the flower box she had attached to the window.

The ways her hands wove the strings of the shimmering instrument brought about a visceral twisting in the pit of his belly. Esme truly became one with the music she made; just the way Edward did when he played the piano. It was exquisite to witness, but it made Carlisle feel slightly sad that he had no musical instrument with which to be obsessed.

Perhaps he only had to devote himself as Esme did. Playing the piano or the harp just might come as easily as writing or sculpting once he gave it a chance.

He wondered vaguely what had been stopping him all these years.

As he watched Esme's graceful fingers flicker across the strings, he decided he knew what the reason behind his hesitation was. Music was too emotional for a man who lived alone. Writing was something everyone did; it was an escape. Sculpting was more physical, even if it was a form of art. But creating music was heartbreaking when there was no one to hear it.

A soft breeze caressed him as he stood by the music room window, comforting him out of the uneasy thoughts. Esme was oblivious to his spying, and he was prolonging the time he took to go inside. Because he knew as soon as Esme heard him enter the house, she would stop playing.

Knowing this was inevitable, Carlisle reluctantly pulled his eyes away from the warm scene behind the window and slowly approached the front porch of the house. He walked up the steps and opened the door.

The rich flow of the harp melted into silence.

He sighed, something inside of his chest feeling hollow even as the sound of Esme's eager footsteps replaced that of the enchanting strings.

Shortly after he heard her voice call from the hallway, "Edward's just gone out for the night."

Of course.

Edward always went out for the night these days.

Carlisle knew why he did it. He knew the boy had hoped one of these nights would end the way they all dreamed it would. But Edward foolishly believed that boldness would conquer his father's well-guarded desires. He believed that Carlisle would cave to his carnal urges and do much more than simply confess his love for Esme.

Carlisle was ashamed to say he had entertained the thought himself. But unlike Edward, he had more trust in his own control. Unlike Edward, Carlisle believed that he possessed the power to wait for however long Esme needed. The only question was, how would he know when she was truly ready?

How would he even know when _he _was truly ready?

Acting on an impulse was not something he wanted to do, but as the days and nights wore on, Carlisle felt that decisiveness slipping away.

"Carlisle? Are you coming?"

His breath hitched at Esme's question. _From the sound of it, she was already in his study._

"Yes," he murmured as he hung up his jacket. "Coming."

It was beyond wonderful to walk into his study and see her standing there, at his desk, with a stack of books waiting on the surface. She smiled an achingly charming smile at him, and his legs felt like they were made of jelly.

"It will be getting dark soon," she cautioned, tilting her head towards the sunset outside the window. "Help me light the candles?"

For some reason Carlisle felt a lump forming in his throat. Lighting candles had always been something he'd done on his own. It was his way of escaping darkness. He had no way to tell Esme that she was enough light in a dark room for him now. But still, he had to admit she looked rather stunning in the candlelight, too.

He stepped forward with a distant smile, realizing that she was waiting for him to open the desk drawer. She still respected his privacy enough that she wasn't about to go digging in his drawer even if it was just to find the matches.

She knew what else was in that drawer.

A chill touched the base of his spine as he came close enough to her to catch her scent. The very air she passed through seemed to hold a ghost of her figure within its invisible breath, and taking that air into his lungs was as close as he could come to possessing her restless spirit.

She glanced up at him as he pulled open the top right drawer of his desk, brushed his journal aside, and picked out some matchsticks. Her golden eyes were already dancing, just like the candle flames that they would soon light all around the room.

He handed her one match and he took another for himself. Together they slowly circled the room, each heading in the opposite direction so they would eventually meet at the fireplace on the other side.

"How was your day?" Carlisle asked over his shoulder. It was such a familiar question now, he almost worried one day Esme would scoff when she heard it.

But she never did.

"Lovely. How was yours?"

"Pleasant."

"Just pleasant?" He didn't miss the teasing note in her voice.

He winced, wishing he could be more thoughtful about his answers. "It was a very good day."

"Hm." She sounded bored.

Struggling with the stubborn wick of a candle that just wouldn't light, Carlisle paused and quickly thought up a better explanation for his bland response.

"It's just that my days are never much more than pleasant until I've come home."

"Oh." Now she sounded intrigued.

He smiled slyly as the candle wick finally sparkled to life. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw that Esme was also hovering over one candle in concentration by the cabinet where he kept his maps. Her hip touched the side of the antique brown globe that stood next to the shelf, causing the world to spin slowly on its shaky axis. It stopped before it could complete a day – a temperament which Carlisle felt his world was prone to once Esme was a part of it.

They continued the rest of their candle-lighting journey in silence until their matches were black and the room was bright. Carlisle felt his feet growing tense as they came closer to meeting each other by the fireplace, which would mark the intersecting point of their paths.

He took his time lighting the very last candelabra before looking up to find Esme already waiting for him by the fireplace. She gently blew out the ember on the end of her matchstick and tossed it into the fire. He did the same and they shared a familiar smile.

Then Esme did something strange. Discreetly, she hooked a finger into the collar of her blouse and gently tugged it down to reveal more skin. Accompanying this peculiar gesture was a casual remark in her sweetly spoken voice, "This is warmest room in the house."

His body flamed in confirmation, the sensation twice as strong beneath layers of thick cotton and a wool sweater. From head to toe the fire spread, wild and silky through each of his limbs.

Yes, it was indeed the warmest room of the house.

All he could do was keep smiling and hope his eyes did not betray the mischievous nature of his thoughts.

As if she noticed the slight suggestiveness of her remark, Esme slowly began to back away from the fire. Carlisle seized the moment to shift their conversation.

"So you've devoted yourself to learning how to play the harp after all?" He leaned against the mantel, letting the warmth from the fire gently roast his back.

She took a deep breath and settled into one of the chairs across from him. "Yes, I decided it was worth the effort to try something a little challenging for a change."

"A challenge I believe it is. I have been listening to you practice."

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to blurt it out quite so suddenly.

She appeared more than a little flustered, but in a pleasant way. "Oh, I'm sorry if I've been disturbing you while you work."

Little did she know, he listened to her more often than just when he was working. She had no clue about his evening conferences beside the music room window when he came home from the hospital.

"Oh, no. Quite the contrary. I find your music quite...soothing."

_And titillating, and enticing, and magical._

A sheepish grin claimed her sweet lips as she turned away. "Do you play any instruments besides the piano?"

Carlisle smirked inwardly. If only Esme had known the adventures he'd had while traveling the world. There were more instruments out there than she had probably even heard about.

"I've tried my hand at almost everything while in Europe. Although I must say I've always felt a pull toward the violin. I've been wanting to learn-"

"Oh, I think that's a wonderful idea!" He started slightly at her happy outburst. "Why wait so long?"

He paused before he could respond, giving the question some real thought and coming up blank.

"I... I don't know why I've waited so long." It was not just plain insecurity, he knew that much. Music was nothing but heartbreak and agony for a lonely man. "I suppose the inspiration for music, like the inspiration for art, only motivates one's heart at a certain time in his life."

Esme's eyes were like the brightest stars on a crisp winter's night. "What do you think inspired you?"

He smiled at her, almost with pity for the fact that she truly did not know the answer to her own question.

"Is it not obvious?"

When she responded only with her thirsty stare, he answered for her.

"You." He opened his hand to her, as if heralding a goddess. "Your presence, your passion for art, your fascination with every detail around you. You've awakened me in more ways than one, you know."

He realized a bit too late how painfully true his words were from the most emotional to the most literal sense. She had certainly awakened him. Every single part of him.

Her fingers flitted to her lips as she covered a quiet giggle. He was struck numb by the sight. There was a simple yet staggering beauty to every little thing she did.

Everything about her forced him to smile.

"It makes me so happy to see you in better spirits lately, Esme." He tucked his hands safely into his pockets and tilted his head back against the mantel, admiring her womanly figure in the soft mottled light of the fire. "I know we've put you through difficult times this past year, but I can't tell you how grateful I am that you've been able to recover from every one of them."

"You've helped me so much," she murmured graciously before quickly adding, "Both you and Edward."

Carlisle smiled proudly, knowing his son deserved just as much credit for Esme's progress. "You've helped yourself just as much, I'd say."

A drawn out silence ensued, during which Carlisle could do no more than stare at the woman seated across the room, his heart steadily blinded by her pure radiance. He was not even thinking of ways to fill the silence that surrounded them. His thoughts were only of his feelings, his needs, his wants. He wanted to shower her with compliments and drown her in praise. He wanted to kneel in front of her and bathe her bare legs with kisses even though the mere idea of doing such a thing was ridiculous.

But his deepest, most potent want in that moment was something he _could _make a reality. He could tell her something he had been aching to tell her for the longest time.

"You know the very first thought that crossed my mind when I first met you?" he asked in a dreamlike whisper.

Her eyes became cloudy as she shook her head, and he took the tense moment to study each vulnerable feature of her face.

"How fragile you looked," he said softly, thrilled by the way her hand subtly made its way up to cover her heart.

"All humans must look that way to a vampire," she said shakily. Her fingers tentatively trailed over the swell of her breast, over her collarbone, and finally behind her neck.

He shook his head, partly in disagreement, partly in awe. "You seemed exceptionally so."

Once again, her lips parted in surprise, but this time she couldn't seem to close them. They were a rich, evocative red in the firelight, but somehow their sordid scarlet hue seemed utterly innocent and pure.

That was his Esme. Always the perfect contradiction to herself.

His chest twisted with sadness when he recalled how she'd looked as a teenager. Her round, childlike eyes, and her pink, freckled nose, and her shy, breathless voice.

She was a soft-spoken rebel, a delicate disaster. She was headstrong, but an introvert. She was a timid daydreamer who was always pulling dangerous stunts. But if she hadn't broken her leg that summer day in Ohio, he never would have met her.

"Do you remember when I tried to make you promise never to climb another tree for as long you lived?" he asked her tenderly, trying to hide his devastation that she could never remember the day with the clarity he did.

To his surprised, she responded with the affirmative. "Yes, I remember." One of her hands gripped her right calf, feeling the very bone he had set back into place.

"You told me you _didn't_ remember," he accused with a shy smirk, "that night when I found you in that tree by the lake."

Her large eyes blinked carefully, like a child waiting to be scolded by her parent.

"I lied."

He knew it.

She crossed her legs, touched her knee timidly, tugged her skirt down over the skin and rubbed her ankles together. She swallowed.

He grinned at how anxious she was. It made him feel a quiet sort of power deep inside, even as it tickled his heart.

At the moment, Carlisle felt very satisfied. Slightly nervous, but still satisfied.

He stared at Esme for as long as he was driven to do so, and when her beauty became unbearable, he turned away from the sight. His breath was strained, and he feared she could hear it. But when he listened closely enough, it sounded as if her own breaths followed an even stranger pattern.

His eyes resisted looking back at her as he distracted himself at the window, allowing himself a moment to recuperate. Behind him, the heat from the fire played on his back, stretching across his body like a warm orange bath – but instead of soothing him, this time the heat made him uncomfortable.

Outside, a young sun's rays were shimmering behind a sheet of morning mist. The beauty of oncoming dawn inspired him to meditate on the beauty of the woman whose breath could be heard just a few feet behind him.

He was not ashamed of his reckless love for her, his fevered admiration for her motherly qualities. She was so sweet, so gentle; so nurturing and sensitive. In a moment of vanity he lost his sense of humility and considered himself an ideal complement to her. He shared these qualities, did he not? Was it truly vain of him to believe so? These were all the things he strived to be, and Esme appeared to be the epitome of it all. She made it look so effortless, so inviting. A life shared with her would be amazing – a thrilling adventure of endless intimacy.

His throat tightened and his thighs ached, his hands gripping the window sill quietly as he listened for her tiny movements behind him. He breathed deeply the scent of her sweet presence, and the fragrant flames of the fire, and the must of ancient books. All of these blended together could define his life, his future with her. It was a beautiful combination – all he needed to do was seal it together forever with a single kiss.

The rising sun teased him from behind the horizon, and the lake rippled nervously with dim reflections of amber and jade. Outside, the earth was warming. Inside, the room was warming. Every candle in his study was still lit, still shivering with every tiny wave of heat they shared. The surface of his skin felt scorched beneath his clothes. He tugged gently at the neck of his sweater and tilted his neck back, only to shudder as the heat penetrated his body.

He was already far too warm.

Heat did unspeakable things to good men. It made them dream even when they were wide awake; it filled one's mind with seductive mirages and tricked a perfectly healthy pair of eyes.

Carlisle blamed the heat for his sudden forwardness, both in mind and speech.

A wayward thought had entered his mind, and like an inebriated man, he had no control over the words that slipped out.

"I was going to show it to you when it was finished," he said huskily, only now realizing that his hands had been attempting to tie the curtains back from the window for the last five minutes. He'd been too lost in thought to even tie a simple knot.

When he heard no reply from Esme, he turned his neck to look at her, smiling an embarrassed kind of smile as he explained what he meant. "The painting upstairs."

Her wide eyes grew even wider in realization. In that moment Carlisle thought he knew exactly what Edward felt like when he read people's minds. Crystal clear images of the secret painting he'd kept hidden upstairs for months flitted into his thoughts. It was if he could see all those furtive images straight out of Esme's mind – the shiny purple and blue oil paints, the soiled jar of linseed oil, the improperly cleaned brush bristles, a painstakingly painted moon over their backyard lake.

If he thought she had looked nervous before, it was nothing compared to what she looked like right now.

"Oh... Carlisle, I..."

He politely interrupted her to spare her the embarrassment she did not deserve, instead placing the fault on himself. "I suppose I should have known your notorious curiosity would lead you to it eventually. I have always been a rather poor job at keeping secrets."

She didn't know about the lonely nights he'd spent painting all by himself, wishing he could mimic the magical way she treated the colors on canvas. But it was as if she hadn't heard a word he'd said. Her eagerness to take blame for spoiling his surprise was, he had to admit, terribly charming.

"I didn't mean to see it!" she defended hastily. "It was only that my paints had gone missing, and—"

_Her paints had gone missing. _Good Lord, he really was a right thief. Now it was his turn to feel genuine embarrassment.

"Again, quite foolish on my part."

They joined together in an awkward bout of laughter, the sound so pretty it was like music to his ears. The heartbreaking kind of music that lonely men should never have to hear.

"It was more difficult than I'd anticipated it would be – painting on my own," he admitted sheepishly. "Look at you, churning out canvas after canvas in a matter of hours – and me pacing myself at a ridiculous one stroke per day."

He attempted to laugh at himself, but it was empty laughter. Deep down he truly wished he could be better at everything for Esme. Not just painting.

But she seemed to have no issue with his shortcomings. This fascinated him. "There's nothing wrong with going slow," she said in her kind and gentle voice, patience simmering peacefully in her tender golden eyes. "Some artists take years if they have to."

"Decades, Esme." He shook his head and pressed a hand into his chest for emphasis. "_This _artist would have taken decades."

She seemed to stop herself before a giggle could break free. He wished she'd let him hear it. Just then new curiosity bloomed all too quickly on her face. "So…is your painting finished yet?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "Has it been ten years yet?"

Her cheeks became puffy and dimpled as her face grew swollen from smiling so much. It was a beautiful look for her.

"I shall be counting down," she said, her excitement sincere.

Their eyes locked again, not so much awkward as questioning.

The heat was suffocating. He was wearing wool, and she was wearing cashmere, and it was all so inappropriate for them to be in such a warm room with so many candles around and full fire burning in the middle of spring.

"What did you think of it?" he asked suddenly, his voice hoarse and blunt.

She knew he was referring to his painting. He could see the clearest image of it in his head, as if he were reading her mind again.

"Oh..." A neutral murmur broke her lips, her eyes cautious. He wondered if she could see how extraordinarily hungry he was for her honest opinion of his work. "It was beautiful. Truly beautiful."

Her kind words were like warm milk for his famished soul.

_Again with the warmth. _Everything was too warm.

"I call it _Lake Cordial by Moonlight_," he began by revealing the title of his artwork, his voice proud. "Every night I would see the moon hovering above the lake outside, like a silent silver saint. It was so inspiring to me. I've never looked at that lake the same way since..."

The tone of his voice went from proud, to mystified, to speechless in a matter of seconds. And in a matter of seconds, a thousand thoughts passed through his mind.

He could not stop reliving that day in his dreams.

When he'd dashed through wind and sleet and mud to bring her to his home. When he'd cleaned her gashes and wounds himself – a sympathetic soldier fighting a fruitless battle for a strange woman's life. When he'd finally caved and parted the curtains to reveal _her _beautiful face.

Because even on the brink of death, she had been beautiful to him.

This world was but an island on which he had been carelessly abandoned, and seeing her for the first time in so long was like seeing the sunrise over a vast ocean of pain and loneliness. It was like blowing all the dust away and finding a key to a lock he had never been able to open.

A fine, striking moment of relief and wonder and _purpose. _

Esme would speak – sometimes of her own desire, sometimes in response to a question he had asked – and when she spoke, everything inside of Carlisle glowed in delight. Everything heavy was lifting; everything sad was smiling. Everything that made him a man, that made him a doctor, that made him a being capable of _love _was begging for more from her. More of her voice, more of her touch, more of _anything _she might have to offer.

No matter what he did to protect himself, this one woman was finding out every little secret he had once kept locked away from everyone, even those that were locked away from himself. But the appealing part of it all was that she never once sought to dissect him, at least not to his knowledge. No, she was completely innocent in her discoveries, stumbling gracefully upon them one by one until she had completed a puzzle from the scraps. A puzzle that, when completed, would tell her exactly who he was_. _

She was Pandora, and he was her box.

And he couldn't help himself from wanting to share even _more _with her. Every other moment, he found himself burning with the fiery need to spill his soul for her to scoop up into her lovely little hands. He _wanted _her to dissect him, to see everything he had experienced – the good, the bad, the wonderful, the terrible.

He never tired of being gentle with her, being patient, and subtly flirtatious with her. She returned every bit of it in her own, exasperatingly enchanting fashion, sitting there on the velvet with her hands curled in her lap, an interested arch to her delicate eyebrows. She always wanted to hear him speak. Carlisle was vaguely convinced that no one had ever listened to him quite as avidly as Esme did – not even his own patients. He could have been telling them that the illness they had contracted had shortened their life by fifty percent and their stare would still never match the rapt captivation of this young woman's.

It was the sight of her – always the same sight of her beautiful face – so enraptured by his words, genuinely intrigued by him... even passionately so.

And when he stared out into the vast and lonely landscape of this cursed property, the atmosphere shimmered before him – not with nitrogen and mist and sunshine – but with _her _face. Esme was everywhere, dear Lord, everywhere. Her eyes were the golden goblets he craved, her cheeks were soft beds for his aching lips to lie upon, her lips twin cushions for his lust, her hair the river of deep caramel he longed to swim within. Her hands were the trees, her breath was the air, her presence was stirring out there, and in here, and all inside of him. Even God was fighting to keep room for Himself. Because Carlisle's heart was filled. Filled with her, and only her.

Dear, sweet, perfect Esme.

He could hear her, now, walking up behind him. Jesus, she was standing so near to him. She was _looking up at_ him; how he loved it when she did that. Yet his nearly watering eyes still remained, stubbornly locked to the tallest tree who was blocking the sunrise as he listened to her tender, throaty question.

"Why did you change me, Carlisle?"

Her question itself was mute for that moment, for he had never heard his name sound so sweet, so crystalline and fine and slightly shaky, so wonderful from her tentative lips. He marveled always that her voice seemed to weaken when she said his name. He noticed the inflections, how they dwindled and softened, playing against a coy hesitation to form the syllables.

And because he could not face her as he answered, he spoke to her liquid reflection in the smooth orange sky.

"Because I could not bear to watch you die."

With just that one sentence free to roam upon the air, it was like he had revealed everything he had once held dear. Everything he had kept in safeguard, buried under his heart, gathering dust over the ages alone. Such a load would have taken months of speaking non-stop for her to hear it all, but in that one sentence it felt just as heavy, just as nude, just as open.

"Thank you."

Her mystified whisper of gratitude grazed his ears, tingled on the back of his neck, made his lungs wide enough to take in the universe.

And if the Almighty Lord had scorched the very cinders of his soul right then, Carlisle would not have felt a pinch.

As he turned to look down at this whispering woman, he could feel the very heat from the sun beating upon his profile when he saw her, and he could not help the smile that brightened his face at her simplest of words.

It was all there in the way she was looking at him. Her eyes wide, almost in disbelief, almost worshipping_._ In the way her voice had hitched just the faintest bit on the last syllable, compliments of her delicate tongue, almost trembling.

No, not almost. She _was _trembling.

But by the grace of angels, _so was he._

It made so much sense then. As much sense as ice in January and as much sense as heat in July. As clear as spring raindrops and as loud as thunder.

She _did _love him. He was certain now. So certain it was painful.

Esme _loved _him.

He needed to say something. What did he need to say?

She was _expecting something_ from him. What could it have been?

He could not remember, because there was something else, too.

There was something anxiously caressing the hold of his heart. Something seductive, begging to be used after centuries of severe neglect. Something holy and terrifying and desperate; something that felt like a thousand candles lit inside his chest.

He wanted to _kiss _her.

Damn everything around them, save for her. Step forward one inch, and take her chin between his hands. Hold her for a second or two, and tilt his head. Breathe against her wine velvet lips and lean in closer...

He wondered what might happen. He wondered how it would end. He wondered too many things, and he would never hear a heavenly response to all of his fruitless wondering.

His restless right hand, strong as it was, felt weak and helpless as it lay against his side. It was so damned useless, dangling there when there was satin skin to be touched just inches away from him. Before he could act on the impulse to raise that hand and touch her cheek, his fingers began to curl themselves inward, fidgeting and twisting against the solid edge of his hip. It was a habit he had never been able to break, and for it he was now ironically thankful.

So he kept his hands away from her – away from her soft, quivering little chin. He did not dare touch her, or else he would have not only kissed her, he would have consumed her.

With effort, Carlisle spoke through the molten pressure of his own breathless smile. "You're welcome..." He paused, lingering on the delectable distress of that necessary reply, wanting to say so much more, _smoldering_ to say so much more. But all he could say was, "Esme."

He whispered her name, and he wondered if she heard it – the rich and wild strain of his passion for her.

He wondered if she knew, as he knew.

But he would not speak if she would not speak. So neither of them spoke.

There was no reason in hell or earth or heaven to keep going on this way, to keep torturing themselves when it made so much _sense _for them to be with one another for eternity. To be together, close, unified until forever's final hour. But that was what made it all so thrilling. So unavoidable.

They could not bring themselves to speak of this perfectly miraculous coincidence. This mutual grief over unreciprocated love that had never ever been unreciprocated. One more hour, one more day, one more week of torture they could endure – they had come this far already.

She walked away from him, just as he knew she would. But he did not worry over it this time. No, this time was different. This time, somehow, he knew with absolute certainty that she would come back to him. He was not even tempted to count the hours.

Long ago, Carlisle had made a promise, and he would keep it. He would wait for _her._

But not without sharing one last secret.

"A key, Esme," he whispered to his soul mate before she vanished from his sight.

Her eyes drank in his secret like a poor woman drank from a pitcher of water.

"What?"

"The final symbol I saw was a key."


	35. Here I Leave My Heart

**Here I Leave My Heart**

_This is the entirety of "Chapter 56: Finding Faith" from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

A man felt something mysterious when he watched the clock strike midnight. There was something about that moment, that feeling of being on the thin bridge between one day and the next. It was a split second no man could grasp, but in that split second, he felt a curious zing through his body telling him that something – in the air, in time, in space – had changed.

Carlisle had forgotten the intensity of that feeling until he saw Esme's eyes, just after he revealed to her the secret symbol of his key. There was a change in her gaze, one which he immediately associated with the stroke of midnight on a clock. There was no sound to alert him to it, no quiet tick or blaring bell. He only felt it, deep inside, where inklings were made into truths.

The truth in that moment was that Esme loved him.

The peace that came from knowing Esme reciprocated his love was astonishing at first. Carlisle was sure enough that what he saw in her eyes was mirrored in his own, yet he knew he had to handle the situation delicately. Esme was a sensitive woman, and one wrong move from him could scatter her feelings away into the wind.

It was at the same time invigorating and frustrating to keep so quiet.

If he was clever enough, he could reveal one secret to her at a time, and maybe that would help her along. He could do it this way, slowly and seductively, leaving her with little pieces of a puzzle. She could piece it together, and maybe she would willingly tell him of her feelings.

_He promised he would wait for her. _

That promise now seemed like a curse.

He had to encourage her somehow, help her to sense his feelings for her without overwhelming her. Everything would have to be carefully thought over, and be subtle enough that Edward would not lose his mind.

Maybe this wouldn't be as easy as he thought.

As soon as Esme bolted from the house to find Edward, Carlisle began to realize the gravity of the situation. He had never before gone from being so calm to so panicked in such a short frame of time. He felt it in his bones, the overwhelming love he had for Esme – how _ready _he was – how ready they _both _were for this moment to come at last. But he did not want to rush into it with hot-headed gusto. He wanted to make it right, absolutely perfect for her.

_What to do? What to do? _

His mind was swirling like a canoe caught in a violent river current, heading in no fixed direction. His thoughts were all over the place, inventing images of Esme's face so close to his that his lips were nearly tempted to kiss the air.

But she was nowhere near him. She was far enough from him that he could barely catch her scent. She was with Edward in the conservatory, far on the other side of the property.

She was too far from him. He hated when she was so far away.

Carlisle leaned heavily on the surface of his desk, his wrists bending under his weight as he breathed above the flame of an unsuspecting candle. All it took was one passionate exhale before the fire flickered erratically and vanished into a blackened ember.

The smoke rose quietly, caressing his face like the fingers of a caring friend. The familiar scent calmed his nerves, and he took a few moments to regain the breath he had lost before standing up straight.

Thrumming with conviction, he bolted from one side of his study to the other, gathering up every bit of evidence that would reveal his love for Esme. All of the notes he had written to her, all of his journals, the bits of ribbon and thread that had fallen loose from her dresses. He stuffed them all safely into his medical bag, donned his jacket, and rushed out to his car.

The bag rested beside him in the passenger front seat, looking so ominous for such an innocent object. Inside of it, he knew his heart was hidden.

He had to do it. So that Esme wouldn't accidentally discover any of it while he was away. So that Edward wouldn't try to do anything brash in his absence.

He would take it all to the hospital, clear his head, and then figure out what to do.

His plan had been simple enough when he first left the house that morning, but after a furiously distracting shift at the hospital, Carlisle was in quite a different state of mind.

He locked himself in his cramp little office with the blinds shut on all the windows and tried to regain some semblance of composure.

There were so many ways to go about this – so many daunting, terrifying ways. Somewhere in his storm of thoughts, Carlisle remembered Eleazar's teasing suggestions to buy a hundred roses and fill an entire room with them for Esme to discover. When he'd first heard the idea from his friend it sounded absurd, but now Carlisle questioned whether it was really just a foolish heap of maudlin nonsense.

After all, Esme's final symbol had been... a rose.

The evening was drawing near, and Carlisle had only a few hours left before Esme would be expecting him back at home. He hated to keep her waiting, but if she knew the cause of his lateness, perhaps she would understand.

This was the night he was going to prepare. He had made his decision.

After a few minutes of driving, Carlisle parked on the side of the street in town, several blocks away from the florist. The streets were fairly busy as they neared the six o'clock hour. Businessmen who had been working late bustled about on the sidewalks, eager to claim a free table in one of the local cafés before the crowds came in. The night was crisp and cool, and the outdoor air was still. Carlisle wished he could enjoy it as the people around him did, but inside he was hopelessly nervous for what awaited him.

Rounding the street corner, he found the charming storefront to the local flower shop, its large window boasting gaudy bouquets of every flower imaginable. The sweet springtime scents drifting from the door filled his stomach with butterflies. It reminded him so much of Esme.

_'Little girls never outgrow their fondness for flowers,' _he remembered her saying.

Looking cautiously up and down the sidewalk for suspicious eyes, he straightened his jacket and quickly entered the shop before one of the townspeople could recognize him.

A plump, middle-aged woman at the counter glanced up from trimming lily stems to greet him with an askew smile. "Can I help you, sir?"

Carlisle swallowed, wondering if this woman could guess he was most likely more nervous than she was. "I ... I was wondering if you had any roses."

Of course they had roses. This was the only flower shop in town. He could smell the unmistakable fragrance of a rose from blocks away.

But no normal human man would know that.

The woman set down her scissors and swept her brown bangs to one side. Her small brass earrings, which were shaped like tulips, swung haphazardly as she moved about behind the counter.

"Why, of course I have roses, young man!"

Her enthusiasm told Carlisle she must not have had many customers that day. He supposed it made sense since it was a work day, and she had likely been just about to close up the shop right before he barged in.

He smiled weakly as she stumbled in her excitement. "Wait right here while I bring in my selection."

While she rummaged around in the back room, Carlisle glanced at his pocket watch. It was almost five minutes until six. He hoped to make it out before the dinnertime rush. Many of the doctors he knew from St. Thomas More Hospital would be coming into town to eat after their shifts ended. If he waited around much longer he would likely find himself stuck in some restaurant with a plate of spaghetti in front of him. He certainly didn't want to fake another stomach flu like he did the last time that happened...

"Early spring's not the best season for roses, but we have the best as they come around here," the florist said as she placed a tray of freshly de-thorned rose stems on the counter in front of him.

As Carlisle stepped closer, he stared sadly at the line of colorful flowers. They were not as lush as the ones he remembered growing in his garden in Florence, and they were nowhere near as vibrant as the ones Esme dreamed of planting in their backyard. Of course they were still beautiful, even with their thinner petals and slightly faded colors. But he could never fill an entire room with just eight roses, which was all this woman had.

It seemed Eleazar's romantic plan would not make it past the drawing board.

Reaching down with careful fingers, Carlisle stroked the velvet bud of one deep scarlet rose, wondering how he could bear to tell this woman that he had changed his mind about buying flowers from her.

While she was distracted by his fingers, he managed to peek at her face. Her cheeks were flushed and her smile was glowing.

"You'll be visiting a lady tonight, hm?"

Carlisle took a strained breath. He was far too easy to read.

"Yes...and I want to do something special for her," he said softly. "But I fear I've waited too long to tell her how I feel."

The woman swiped her sweaty palms on the front of her bright purple checked vest and sighed. "It's never too late to tell a lady that you love her."

Carlisle gave the stranger a small, appreciative smile.

He suppressed a pang of thirst as more blood rushed to her round face. "'Sides, your little honey would be off her rocker if she said no to you!"

Before Carlisle could protest, the woman was already wrapping one elegant red rose in tissue paper.

Frantically, he fished in his pockets for spare change. "Oh, here I_—_"

"Ah ah ah! I won't take one clam from you, son," she chided, thrusting the flower into his hand. "It's yours. Now get a move on!"

"But_—_"

"You can't put a price on love, dear," she said softly, her eyes turning moist as she continued to push away his fistful of coins. "You're far too young to waste any more time, trust me."

The irony of her warning stung him hard in the heart, but the truth of her words healed any doubt he had left.

Carlisle accepted the rose with whispered words of thanks. He had no idea what he would do with a single red rose, but it didn't matter anymore. He had no plan at all for tonight. He was relying all on whims now.

It was exactly six o'clock when the flower shop closed.

Carlisle left six dollars on the counter before he left.

******-}0{-**

The night was still too young for comfort. Carlisle had underestimated how crowded the streets would be when he left the florist's. The jarring smells oregano and tomato sauce wafted from the constantly opening and closing doors of the local restaurants. The most popular place to dine in town was an Italian café owned by the infamous Pellicciotta family.

It said a lot that even the local vampires were aware that the Pellicciottas' food was the best for miles around. Even so, Carlisle wouldn't dare set foot in the place if given the choice, especially around dinnertime.

Already, a long queue had gathered just outside the restaurant's doors. Well dressed townspeople chatted animatedly while they waited for their reservations, several of whom Carlisle could recognize from the hospital.

It was impossible to make it back to his car without passing through the crowd.

Though he was quite confident in his control, he still held his breath before approaching the large group of people. It had been a while since he had been forced into such close contact with so many humans at a time.

Uttering the occasional 'pardon,' he managed to squeeze his way through the crowd, slightly dizzy from the mish-mash of male and female voices that swirled around him.

"D'ya see the gams on that dame?"

"Oh, I'm absolutely _starved!_"

"The food had better be as good as they all say it is."

Several faces he passed eyed him suspiciously, including a silent pair of young women in heavy makeup who were smoking cigarettes against the brick wall of the building. He had seen those women before in different parts of town, always giving him the same, sexually aggressive stare. In some slightly ridiculous way, they frightened him.

Carlisle clutched his red rose tighter beneath his jacket, comforted by the way the tissue paper crinkled between his fingers.

_The only woman who mattered tonight was Esme. He must get home to her... _

Bowing his face out of sight, he sidled past the line of people and only stopped when he was safe on the other side of the building. Small square windows lined the brick wall, allowing him to peer into the restaurant's dark interior. Out of curiosity, Carlisle stepped closer to look inside, just to see what he was missing on weekday evenings.

The restaurant was packed with small round tables, nearly every one circled by at least four or five seats. Each table had its own center candle, and the dim room appeared to be dotted with small, flickering red globes. Every guest was smiling and laughing, with a drink or fork in their hand. Loud conversations clashed from table to table, the topics varying from crude jokes to pleasant chit-chat on the weather. Women were dressed in their finest silk hats and most gaudy jewelry. Apron-clad servers swerved hastily from one table to the next, refilling glasses and stealing away empty plates.

It was indeed a lovely atmosphere, and Carlisle could understand why the place was so popular. He only imagined that if he had a regular family like all the rest, he would bring them here every week for dinner, too.

The thought made him slightly sad.

As his eyes wandered distractedly around the scene, they came to rest in a quiet corner of the room, very close to where he watched from his secret spot by the window. All alone at the corner table was a very old man. His eyes were wrinkled and distant as he watched the boisterous and happy people around him, his face impassive. No one in the room seemed to notice him at all. Even the waiter had forgotten to refill his drink.

Every table in the room was filled to full capacity except for the one in the corner where this old man sat. Sadly, it was not surprising to Carlisle that the man was ignored by everyone else. The others were all too busy flirting with their dates and laughing at their bosses' jokes to pay any attention to the lonely old man in the corner. But Carlisle's compassionate heart could not bear to ignore him.

Throat tight with pity, Carlisle wondered about the personal life of this lonely gray spectator.

Why was he here alone tonight? Did he come here often? Was he used to being the only single man at a table? What was his story?

Imagination served Carlisle well, whether he asked it to or not. This old man must have walked the world alone for years, just as he had. Perhaps he had once loved a woman and never found the courage to tell her he loved her. Perhaps he had passed up his chance long ago to secure a wife, a family, and friends. Now he had no one to take to dinner each evening. He only took himself.

That was no way to live.

Loneliness was a curse. Why would anyone choose to prolong it?

In the sorrowful, wrinkled face of the mysterious old man, Carlisle saw himself. He may not have aged the same way humans did, but if he had asked for a table at this restaurant tonight, he would have been alone, too.

He didn't want to be alone anymore.

He _never _wanted to be alone again.

The light weight of the rose tucked beneath his jacket suddenly struck him as not enough. Not nearly enough.

A rose would wither and die before long. He needed to give Esme something _more_ if he wanted to secure her love forever. He needed something that would last as long as they would.

He needed a ring.

Drunk on yet another sudden whim, Carlisle turned away from the restaurant window and took off down the street in the opposite direction.

He was much less timid about pushing his way through the crowds when he had a deadline to make. It was very possible that the jeweler's had already closed.

The people continued streaming up the sidewalks, forcing him to move against the flow of traffic. In the midst of his struggle to move past them, he heard a man's voice from deep within the crowd mutter, "Isn't that Cullen?"

Seized with dread that he'd been recognized, Carlisle turned up his collar to hide his profile as he sprinted across the street.

He heard his name being uttered by several other voices just before he turned onto the next block.

It would have been so much easier to hide his identity if he wasn't blond.

Cursing silently, Carlisle wandered aimlessly up and down the less crowded streets on the other side of town, disobeying traffic laws in order to make it to the jeweler's as fast as possible.

From a distance, he could at last make out the store sign...but the front window, which was usually lit with bedazzling diamonds, was now cave-like and dark.

He was too late.

His heart sank steadily with every step he took closer to the window.

The sight was so familiar, yet foreign in the darkness. He passed by this very window so many times on his way to work every morning, but it was always brightly lit then. He could never help glancing over at the sparkling diamonds, fantasizing about how each one might look on Esme's finger. After months, he'd grown so sick of walking past it every day, just longing to reach into his pocket and spend his money on one special jewel.

Standing there with his hands tight in his pockets, alone in front of the closed jewelry shop, Carlisle felt so utterly helpless. Like a child who had just missed the train back home.

The night air felt colder than ever.

Just as he was about to turn around, the muffled sound of voices inside the building alerted him to the presence of two men quarreling as they made their way to the door.

"That's all I'm asking, just one month! Your mother just doesn't know when to shut her_—_Holy smokes! Watch where you're going, chap!"

Carlisle jumped swiftly backward as a bearded man in a black cap and jacket nearly bumped into him. "Mister Mellingrose!" he exclaimed, surprised to see the shop's owner leaving so late.

The man was almost always cranky, but after finding the town doctor loitering outside his shop at night, he had every right to be crankier than usual.

Carlisle didn't need the decency to look ashamed. Shame came naturally as the man's beady eyes looked him up and down in suspicion. An awkward silence followed, during which Carlisle could think of no way to explain his presence without revealing his last minute proposal plans.

Before he could stutter an excuse, the young man who still stood behind Mister Mellingrose peeked curiously over the elder man's shoulder. His polite, handsome face and wide brown eyes struck Carlisle with sudden familiarity.

Mister Mellingrose's son, Tristan, was in Edward's class at the academy.

Carlisle looked frantically back to the boy's father, hoping Tristan would not make the connection.

"Forgive me, sir. I did not know you were still inside."

The man bristled behind his beard. "So you make a habit out of sneaking around my shop when I'm gone for the night, do you?"

"Oh, no, of course not! I wasn't sure of what time you closed."

"We close at six, dandy? _Every _business in town closes at six!" He tapped his watch emphatically as if he were speaking to a toddler.

"So it seems," Carlisle muttered with a dreary look around the block.

Mellingrose crossed his arms. "Then do you care to explain what you're doing here at this late hour?"

"I was...I was walking through town and I..." Carlisle stopped mid-sentence, figuring the truth could do him no worse at this point. It was worth a try. "Well, I was hoping to make a purchase from you tonight, sir."

Mellingrose raised one bushy eyebrow, pressuring him to continue.

"There's a young woman, you see, and I..." Carlisle paused, aware of how dangerous revealing this information could be to his identity in town. But he couldn't stop himself from sharing it. He needed this ring tonight, and if it took a pity story to get him into that jeweler's shop, he was going to risk it. "I had hoped I would be able to propose to her this evening."

A soft smile quirked on the younger man's lips. He looked expectantly to his father, as if it were a reasonable enough excuse to open their doors for just one more customer.

But old man Mellingrose wasn't so easily swayed by sappy stories. "I see. And may I assume you are now aware of our store hours?"

Carlisle's fingers instinctively clutched the rose hidden in his pocket. "Yes, I am, sir. But I was hoping you might make an exception since_—_"

The man promptly burst into robust laughter. "Oh-ho! Out of the question, _Doctor _Cullen." The amusement in his eyes quickly hardened to a look of haughty distaste as he turned to cross the street. "I'm afraid you'll just have to swing by tomorrow with the _rest _of the public."

Carlisle winced, realizing at once how presumptuous and arrogant his request had made him sound.

This was certainly not his night.

Tristan's eyes passed sympathetically over Carlisle before he rushed into the street after his father.

"Mister Mellingrose, wait!" Carlisle called after the two men.

Without turning around, the elder man raised his right arm in a lazy wave farewell. "Good_night_, Doctor!" His voice was merrily muffled as he disappeared around the corner with his son.

When the last of their shadows vanished from the street, Carlisle slumped against the jewelry store window with a resounding sigh.

Somewhere in the alley behind the building, a stray cat screeched. Two blocks down, the brakes of a truck came to a deafening halt. The agitated voices of jaywalkers shouted and cussed as their footsteps scattered across the gravel. If he listened closely enough, Carlisle could even swear he still heard the mindless chatter of the guests at the Pellicciotta family restaurant uptown.

With his forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, Carlisle half opened his eyes and stared longingly at the twinkling display of diamonds on their velvet cases.

He had never considered stealing before, but right about now it seemed a most shamefully appealing suggestion.

He groaned out loud and slipped his fingers securely around the cross that hung under his collar. His eyes squeezed shut as he asked for the strength to wait just one more night. Perhaps he needed another day to think on it. Perhaps it was meant to be that he couldn't buy the ring tonight. He had been acting on impulse all evening long. Maybe this was God's way of telling him it was time to start thinking seriously.

When he opened his eyes, hundreds of diamond rings glinted back at him, like pairs of flirtatious eyes staring him down from every corner of the window.

It was time for him to go home. Esme was waiting.

But he couldn't move his feet from the spot. He was rooted in place.

He couldn't go home with just a rose. He couldn't tell Esme he loved her until he had a ring to prove it.

He would have sobbed if he could have.

Nothing was going to get better if he just stood here all night, but it was all he _could _do.

The evening wore on around him like a vanishing man in a black cloak. He listened sadly as the restaurants cleared out and the traffic died down in the distance. At some point the moon started to shine brightly above him, taunting his fantasies by making the diamonds in the window shimmer even more radiantly.

In the mournful silence of the street, a steady pattern of footsteps coming closer prompted Carlisle to turn around. As the shadowy figure approached, Carlisle began to recognize his scent before he saw his face.

Young Tristan Mellingrose, smiling and panting, crossed the street with a ring of brass keys in his hand. His combed brown hair was disheveled from running, and his shoelaces were untied.

"I thought you'd still be here, Doctor Cullen," he said breathlessly, his loafers shuffling on the concrete as made his way to the door.

Carlisle stood aside, baffled. "How did you know?"

"If it were me wanting to propose to my girl, I wouldn't leave until I had what I wanted," he said with a grin of understanding.

Carlisle was pleasantly puzzled. "But how did you sneak away from your father?"

"He thinks I'm meeting a friend for dinner in town. I told him I'd be home late." With a mischievous glint in his eye, he turned the key deftly in the lock and opened the front door to the shop. The bell jingled victoriously inside.

Carlisle laughed graciously at the boy's elated expression, squeezing his shoulder in hardy appreciation as he followed him through the door.

Tristan's steps led him through the darkness toward the jewelry counter on the back wall.

"Hold on just a moment while I get the lights."

Not a second later the room was bathed in flashes of white and gold; in every corner, watches and necklaces glittered from behind crystal clear cases.

Carlisle watched as Tristan came slowly out from behind the counter, his face suddenly looking shy as he contemplated how to say his next words. "Edward never mentioned that you were interested in getting married."

Carlisle sighed. "Well, I gather Edward doesn't talk about me much."

Tristan looked dumbfounded. "He talks about you all the time."

"...He does?"

The teenager nodded, strands of brown hair falling into his eyes. "He says you've been all around the world. You've taken him to almost every state. You speak a ton of languages. You have lots of foreign friends. You collect antiques." His mouth quirked into a smirk. "You go to church on Sundays."

Carlisle chuckled mildly, still too shocked to speak.

"He says you're like a father to him, even though you're just his uncle."

Something inside Carlisle became unbearably warm.

"I had no idea..."

Tristan furrowed his brow with a shrug. "He doesn't seem to like it when we ask questions about him, but he really seems to like talking about you."

Another weak, achy laugh leapt from Carlisle's throat. He could barely believe what this boy was telling him. Edward talked about _him _with his friends at school; he practically _bragged_ about his foster uncle.

Almost a minute passed before Carlisle realized he was foolishly beaming with pride for his son. He suddenly wished Edward was present so he could tell him how much he appreciated him in person.

"Doctor Cullen?" Tristan's voice startled him out of his reverie. "Want to see the rings now?"

******-}0{-**

Talking to Tristan was incredibly easy. The boy seemed to be fascinated by anything Carlisle had to say. Carlisle could tell that he was glad to help someone, mostly because he was doing it against his father's will.

Tristan was just as knowledgeable as the elder Mellingrose when it came to the finer points of jewelry. He showed Carlisle the most popular choices in diamond cuts, and the most practical rings for fitting women's fingers.

Carlisle hadn't felt this close to another human besides his own patients in such a long time. It was refreshing to be able to talk so openly to someone new, especially someone so young. Carlisle so often thought of himself as someone who should identify with older men, being that he had lived for hundreds of years already. But buried deep within himself, he had neglected that part of him which longed to speak of youthful things. He was, after all, still young in the way of coming to know love.

But even after he was fed every last detail on each diamond in the shop, Carlisle still felt a pang of distress when it came to making his decision on which to buy for Esme.

"If money were no object, which do you think your girl would like the most?" Tristan asked in a curious whisper, leaning so close to the diamond case that his breath made a cloud on the glass.

Carlisle smirked to himself, confident in his private thoughts that money _was _no object for him. And he would gladly buy the entire case of diamond jewelry for Esme if she so desired.

Unfortunately for the Mellingroses' business, Esme was not that kind of woman.

"I don't really know," he sighed honestly, his gaze still traveling patiently from case to case. It must have been well past midnight by now. He dearly hoped Mister Mellingrose wouldn't be suspicious about his son's whereabouts.

"I guess it is a hard decision," Tristan sympathized.

Carlisle tapped his fingers on the glass. "I could see her liking any of them."

"But could you see any of them on her finger?"

It was a wise question.

Carlisle gave it a moment of deep thought.

"She's an artist, so it should be small – something she can wear even when she's painting. And she likes to run outside, so it should be light-weight, and tight enough that it won't slip off when she's running."

Tristan frowned as his eyes scanned the cases. "Hmm. I don't really think any of these are for her." Something in his eyes changed suddenly, the pride of a brilliant idea blooming on his face. "Come into the back room with me."

Without question, Carlisle followed the boy through a small hallway and into the storage room.

"My mother travels the world like you do," Tristan explained randomly as he rummaged through boxes and shelves, searching for something. "She's been everywhere, all over Europe and Asia. She even went to Australia when she was eighteen. She used to collect old jewelry from around the world when she was younger. Whenever she came back from visiting a new place, she would bring a gift for me to keep from her trip." Carlisle began to understand where all the information was leading up to, just as Tristan turned around with a small leather pouch in his hand. He reached inside and produced a tiny golden band. "Just last month, she gave me this."

Carlisle opened his hand to receive the mysterious ring. Once he held it, he could see clearly that it was not just a simple golden band.

In the place where a plain cut diamond usually rested, the ring bloomed outward with tiny golden leaves. Nestled in the center of those leaves was a rose made from at least fifty pin-dot diamonds. Their color was fascinating, unlike any other diamonds Carlisle had ever seen. He wondered if the difference in color and brilliance was only something visible to his vampire eyes. The clear stones seemed to glow with the slightest tint of pink when he placed it in the light. Even the gold of the ring itself seemed to shine with a nearly imperceptible sheen of rosy pink.

"It's from Russia," Tristan told him. "Pure gold, of course. Probably a Mid-18th Century make. Fantastic detailing. I think it's spectacular."

Carlisle suppressed a small smile. The boy was a brilliant salesman, even if his father didn't think so.

"It's beautiful, Tristan. But I can't buy this from you. It's priceless. Your mother gave it to _you._"

The boy smirked with a happy shrug. "What am _I _going to do with a diamond ring?"

Carlisle frowned and looked away from the ring in his hand, which seemed to grow more achingly beautiful by the second. "Keep it until_ you're _ready to propose. It has sentimental value."

"Everything my mother gave to me has sentimental value, and believe me there's plenty," he laughed. "Besides, I might never even get married."

Carlisle shook his head vehemently, but Tristan forced him to keep hold on the tiny ring.

"I want _you_ to take this ring, Doctor Cullen. Give it to your girl. She'll fall in love with it."

Carlisle looked down at the brilliant diamond rose with a burning heart. Just imagining it perched on Esme's finger was an intoxicating thought.

"Edward would murder me if he found about this," he mused tonelessly.

"Just between us, Edward doesn't know much about girls," Tristan confided with a chuckle.

Carlisle laughed heartily. "I'm fairly sure he's proud of that fact, too."

"Maybe one day he'll appreciate you spending a whole night trying to find the perfect engagement ring for his future aunt."

A content smile crossed Carlisle's lips at the thought. "Maybe."

"So you'll take it?"

Carlisle noticed then how tired the boy's face was. Prolonging sleep for as long as he had was not healthy. It was only pure excitement that was keeping him awake.

After a deep breath, the doctor conceded. "Name your price."

Tristan smiled and shook his head. "I don't want any dough for it, Doc."

"Don't be ridiculous, Tristan. I need to pay you."

"Come on, my father's not the one doing the selling here."

"I insist." Carlisle reached into his pocket and placed two fifty dollar certificates on the table beside him.

Tristan's mouth fell open.

The poor boy was speechless for a good minute. Carlisle wasn't surprised by his reaction. It was likely he had never seen anyone purchase a hundred dollar ring without first sleeping on their decision for at least a few days.

"Doctor Cullen," he murmured, staring blankly at the two limp bills laying on the table.

"We won't tell your father," Carlisle whispered furtively, exchanging a significant look with Tristan's wary eyes.

The young boy's lips curved into a wide smile of utter disbelief as his fingers carefully traced the edge of one faded bill.

"I don't know how to thank you."

"I'm the one who needs to thank you," Carlisle said emphatically. "My night would have gone in a very different direction if it weren't for you coming back to find me. I don't think you realize how much that meant to me, Tristan."

He grinned sheepishly, barely able to suppress a yawn.

Carlisle chuckled. "You need to go home, now. Get some sleep. I know you have class tomorrow."

Still smiling sleepily, Tristan gathered his fortune with shaky fingers and set them carefully into the breast pocket of his jacket. He made sure every button on his jacket was fastened tightly before locking up all of the display cases they had opened throughout the night.

They were pleasantly silent as they turned the lights off and departed the shop together. The streets were barren and still, but the moon still shone brightly on the other side of the sky.

While Tristan was busy locking the doors, Carlisle realized he couldn't let the boy walk home by himself in the dark. He probably lived at least a mile uptown.

"Let me drive you home."

Tristan waved his hand at the offer, but Carlisle insisted. In the end, the boy was too tired to refuse.

Judging from the way Tristan fell asleep as soon as he got in the car, Carlisle wondered if the boy would even bother attending class the next morning. As he drove, Tristan's soft snoring was surprisingly peaceful, along with the endless symphony of crickets outside.

Once he was parked next to the Mellingroses' fancy townhouse, Carlisle reached into his pocket to take another look at the ring. Its simple yet stunning beauty would be the perfect complement to Esme's delicate finger. As his thumb gently traced the thin gold band, his eyes swelled with tears of venom. No man on earth would be as happy as he, if only she would accept his proposal.

Until then, his dreams were well on their way to becoming real.

The dreams of another young man, he regretted to say, were about to end in a few seconds.

"Tristan," he called gently, prodding the boy's shoulder to wake him up. "We're at your house."

The teenager raised his head with an endearing look of confusion, his eyes bleary and his hair mussed.

"Don't forget your house keys," Carlisle reminded as he tossed him the brass ring full of keys he had stolen from his father.

Tristan accepted the keys with a nod, the jangling sound seeming to wake him abruptly from his stupor. His awareness of the grand sum of money in his pocket had not worn away from the effects of sleep, Carlisle was surprised to see. He held his jacket tightly around his body as he opened the car door to step onto the curb.

"You won't get into trouble with your father, will you?" Carlisle asked in concern.

"Nah. He's a sound sleeper."

"Be careful."

"Thanks, Doctor Cullen." Tristan paused before closing the car door. "Maybe I'll see you around soon?"

"If you don't get to bed right now, I'll be seeing you very soon...in the hospital."

His boyish features crinkled into a look of confusion. "Huh?"

"Lack of sleep is very bad for the immune system," the doctor explained.

"Oh, right. In that case you'd better get home soon, too."

Carlisle couldn't help but chuckle. "I will."

"Oh, and Doc?" He turned abruptly before Carlisle could turn the key in the ignition.

"Yes?"

"Good luck with the proposal."

Still clutching the ring in his right hand, Carlisle nodded his appreciation.

"Thank you, Tristan."

The boy shared a groggy smile before closing the car door. Carlisle watched him walk sluggishly up the sidewalk until he was safe inside his house.

Before tonight, Tristan Mellingrose had just been another one of Edward's classmates. Now he was Carlisle's greatest hero.

******-}0{-**

Carlisle never made it home that night.

After he left the Mellingroses' house, he drove aimlessly through town until he made it to the familiar forest roads that wound for miles towards Chartercrest. But instead of heading straight home like he usually did at the end of his shift, he took a right turn where he always turned left, and decided to see where it would lead him.

The woods seemed darker as he ventured into unfamiliar territory. It was still early enough that the sun had not yet risen. The sky was beautiful but dreary, an endless blanket of dull blue-gray. On the sides of the road, the gangly branches of trees stretched out like lines of ink against the sky, not a gust of wind to make them dance. They stood in utter stillness against their gloomy backdrop, as if they had been pasted into a single moment in time.

The road swerved and curved through the forest, leading him up a hill. He could not see anything beyond the thick barrier of trees that surrounded him, but he trusted that any path leading uphill would be a worthwhile path to follow.

Trust led Carlisle to the majestic edge of a cliff on the very top of the mountain, overlooking a glorious sea of trees below. The first thing he thought when he saw the stunning scene, was how beautifully Esme could have captured it on canvas.

Putting his car into park, Carlisle turned the engine off and let nature sing her gentle song.

The silence on this mountaintop was the purest silence Carlisle had heard in a long time. The early hour of morning, combined with his distance from any populated area, ensured that no sound save for the chirping birds and the rustling breeze could be heard.

Unable to sit in his car any longer, Carlisle opened the door and stepped outside, breathing in the untainted morning air. Everything was cool and damp, droplets of dew making everything around him sparkle faintly in the darkness. The sky was just beginning to lighten on the horizon now, bearing a timid periwinkle streak of clouds. The strong scents of wet grass, earth, and solitude filled his lungs with every breath. From inside his jacket he could still smell the soft fragrance of the single red rose he intended to give Esme.

Shrugging off his jacket, Carlisle opened his pocket to find the velvety petals peeking out. In that very same pocket he had hidden her engagement ring – another rose, of quite a different value.

He reached inside and pulled out the golden rose ring. It was mind-boggling that something so tiny could rival the majesty of the grand scene before him.

That tiny ring meant everything to him. To Carlisle, it held the weight of the world and the colors of a thousand suns.

As he slowly turned it between two fingers, the diamonds glittered tenderly, even under a canopy of dim gray shadows. Somehow, watching the shimmering stones helped to restore his strength after a long night.

When the sun finally rose in the distance, Carlisle held his head high to watch the coming of a new day.

He had no idea when or how he was going to propose to Esme. But he trusted that when the time came, he would know.

All it would take was a little faith.

******-}0{-**

Stuffing his medical bag full of all his love letters before he left that night had been a foolish precaution.

He hadn't accomplished anything, hadn't prepared anything special. He had nothing to show after an entire night, no plans at all. Just a priceless ring and a red rose.

It was only at this point that Carlisle began to feel the first pangs of pain that came with this game he'd started. It was too slow. It wasn't keeping up with the flame that had come to life with their very first touch, and now it was threatening to burn him alive. He couldn't hold it back anymore. This woman – his partner, his best friend, his kindred spirit, his fantasy, his passion – was threatening his steel control to bend and break.

Seeing the answer in Esme's eyes was not enough.

How would he hold out until she was ready to confess _her_ love?

He barely had time to wonder before he opened the door to his home that morning and found her lovely face waiting for him on the other side.

"Tell me about God."

It was what he had been waiting for. He hadn't even realized how long he'd been wanting to hear Esme ask it. It was the only thing he had wanted even more than her profession of love.

This was the last discussion they truly _needed _before they were ready to take the next step. If she wanted him to tell her about God, Carlisle would not only tell her, he would show her.

"Walk with me," he said. And she followed.

It was unlike anything he had experienced before.

He spoke to her about the power of faith, and she fed from his words. Her eyes would flicker with doubt, and he would slay that doubt the instant he saw it. He never gave it a chance to infect her heart.

He quelled every one of her insecurities with assurances until she could think of nothing more to inspire worry.

The lake shimmered before them as dawn bloomed in the distance. Everything around them was comfortably dark, so achingly ready to become lighter than it ever had been.

Everything was a metaphor. Everything she said made him quake inside with a need so great it forced him to question his own morality. Everything was twice as beautiful as it should have been, only because Esme made his world a more beautiful place.

Her beauty was enticing, and dangerous, and wholesome, and innocent. It was a paradox of saintliness and sin. He wanted to grasp it, somehow, and hold it between his fingertips. He wanted to see it with eyes that were wide open, and not halfway closed.

He said things to her that a good man would say. His words were pure and honest, and his message was only a message of truth. But inside his heart there was a storm. Electric currents thrust through his veins, every region of his body was disturbed by the tender torture of her voice, her expressions, her gaze.

Though it was rare for his eyes to ever leave hers, sometimes he found himself distracted by the sight of her hand in the grass. Dove white and slender, her fourth finger seemed so irresistibly lonely without a ring to protect it.

He wanted to dress it in gold and diamonds. He wanted her to _feel _the weight of his promise whenever she moved her hand. He wanted her to remember it every time she went to lift that finger. He wanted the ring to be tight enough to cause her the tiniest bit of discomfort – that perfect kind of pain that so eloquently embodied their love for each other.

He asked her to stay with him. He _told _her to stay.

He told her that he needed her, that her touch gave him life, that he wanted her to abandon all reason and trust only in him.

It gave him chills just hearing himself say these things to her. It was as if he were watching the entire scene from a separate pair of prying eyes. He could hear himself speaking in hushed, intimate tones – a man making desperate and dangerous confessions to a woman whose only expectation was to listen.

Esme listened so intently it frightened him.

She _wanted _to hear all that he had to say. She wanted to learn, she wanted to trust, she wanted to understand. She wanted to know about God, because she wanted to know Carlisle as deeply as she could.

It was never more clear how dearly she wanted to belong to him.

Their conversation drew itself to a satisfying close; an exchange of sweet promises spoken in burning whispers, as the sunrise blessed them both with streams of golden light.

A wave of morning mist collected around them, and Carlisle felt as if it were protecting him, helping to calm his fever. Hidden by gauzy clouds of light and color, Carlisle found the confidence to kiss the woman whose love outshone the stars.

His lips touched her forehead, so soft that he felt it only in his heart. Esme sighed in his arms, and he held her tighter. No feeling on earth could surpass this, he was certain.

An obscenely deep sense of fulfillment struck him in every part of his body, a weight like silk and lead filling him from head to toe.

His kiss lingered, sealed and secured on her velvet skin. It would never leave her, so long as she would never leave him.

******-}0{-**

He could see the sadness in Esme's eyes when he left her alone outside, and it felt like a spear in his side. At the same time, he felt elated to know that she would ache without him.

Again, there was a small pinch of doubt in his stomach.

He couldn't have just been imagining these looks she kept giving him. Her eyes were pools of heaven for him, her longing glances were radiant. She was latched on to him, soul to soul. He could feel her tugging him from afar. Her gravity summoned him wherever he went.

It grew stronger every day.

Every hour. Every instant.

He couldn't possibly go back to the hospital that morning. He called in promptly to complain of a "fever."

It was at least partially true. His body did feel as though it were on fire.

He bolted back into the house and headed straight for his study. He quickly found his medical bag filled with love notes and journal entries. All he could do was stare at the mess while his fingers itched to post them all to the walls of the house.

Something had to be done.

His gaze drifted down to take in the spattered ink covered letters he had stuffed inside the bag. He was convinced there was no room in there for even one more note.

But in the back of his mind, he could think of a thousand more things to say to Esme.

It was time to stop writing, and start _saying _those things instead.

Carlisle closed his eyes tightly, one hand gripping his chest where his heart used to beat. Having a heartbeat, he thought, made a man feel much braver.

He relived the previous night in a flawless stream of fleeting memories, knowing that as everything came rushing back to him, he would only find more evidence that destiny was at work.

Destiny. No man crossed her path more than twice in a lifetime.

At the precise moment this thought crossed Carlisle's mind, Edward chose to make his grand entrance.

It was fair to say the boy was a bit confused by his father's scattered thoughts.

"You talked to Tristan Mellingrose? When? Why? You bought Esme a _ring?_ Are you crazy? People can't know you're trying to get engaged! Why do you think I failed to tell them you were in love to begin with? I can't believe you bought her a ring. You should have just stuck with that stupid rose the fat lady gave you for free... Wait, who's the old man in the restaurant? Carlisle, what the hell were you _doing_ all last night?"

"Just take a deep breath, Edward," Carlisle managed to interject. "You sound like you're going to explode."

To Carlisle's surprise, Edward obeyed his command. He cupped his hands around his head for a moment, then let out a long breath. Somewhat calmed, the boy asked idly, "So what's your plan now?"

Carlisle looked at the ground. "I...I don't really have one."

Edward rolled his eyes. "I figured as much."

"Let me think for a bit, will you?"

"Suit yourself." A suspicious half-smirk crossed Edward's face as he glanced at the black leather bag full of love notes on the desk between them.

Something dangerous blossomed in the back of Carlisle's mind.

He looked up at once, stunned. "I have time, don't I?"

"Plenty of it," Edward whispered, somewhat warily. "Esme thinks you're at work."

The wheels were turning. The clock was ticking. The sun was rising higher in the sky, and things were beginning to take shape.

Carlisle felt a sweet surge of panic fill his chest. His plans were one step ahead of him, and he was struggling to keep up.

"Will you make sure she doesn't come near the house for a while?" he begged his bemused son as he grabbed his doctor's bag and made for the hall. "Just keep her outside."

Edward squeezed his eyes shut, leaning his head toward the window. "Hold on a minute... Her thoughts are out of range. I think she's taking a walk through the woods."

"Good," Carlisle whispered to himself as he escaped up the stairs. "Good..."

"Where are you going?" Edward called. Carlisle didn't answer.

Once upstairs, Carlisle followed Esme's lingering scent into her bedroom – the one room in the house he hardly ever dared to set foot in. He placed his doctor's bag on the carpet by the door and held his rose loosely at his hip.

The master suite was beautiful. He always forgot how beautiful it really was. No memory could do the room justice. There was something exotic about the cool, deep blue tones of everything. It was like walking into a luxurious lagoon. The sheer blue curtains let diaphanous streams of tinted light into the room through the windows, and when the clouds passed over the sun, the wallpaper shimmered as if it were underwater.

His feet barely made a sound on the carpet as he walked into the room, nearing the bed. The quilts were all tucked neatly in place, pillows arranged perfectly. As he stared at the silky blue covers, the streaming sunbeams touched the surface in a fleeting wave of light. Something deep inside his chest shivered and he quickly looked away.

The single red rose he held in his hand looked very poignant against the backdrop of cerulean blue. If he laid it on her pillow, it would make quite a stunning statement. But what could he do with the ring? He didn't want to leave it for her to find. He wanted to be the one to give it to her, to place it on her finger himself.

Perhaps he could somehow leave the rose behind with a note of some kind, leading her to where he would be waiting with the ring.

But where would he wait for her? And how would he know when she was about to find his note? It could take her days to come back into her bedroom. For all he knew, she hardly ever spent any time in here. She was also very fond of the upstairs library. Maybe he could leave a note in there for her to find.

Carlisle squeezed the bridge of his nose and sighed. This was all too complicated. He needed to simplify his plan.

Just as he was about to begin pacing around the room, he noticed a small corner of paper peeking out of Esme's nightstand drawer. It struck him as curious, and he came closer to investigate.

He cracked the drawer open just enough to tug the piece of paper out, smoothing the creases on his palm to read it.

A rough, piercing sensation shot him straight in the heart. On that piece of paper was the poem he had written to Esme long ago, the one he had slipped inside her sketchbook for inspiration. The words were so familiar and still rang so true, it was as if he had written them yesterday.

Esme must have thought that poem very special to keep it inside her drawer all this time. He wondered what else she may have kept in there...

Kneeling down in front of the nightstand, Carlisle paused and placed his rose on the surface. His fingers hesitated before he made to pull open the drawer the rest of the way. This _was _Esme's bedroom. He had already invaded her privacy, and he was about to take it one step further. This was inappropriate.

His fingers clasped the handle and gave the gentlest of tugs.

It creaked softly in warning, begging his fingers to let go before it was too late.

But Lord help him, he just couldn't stop himself from opening that drawer.

He held his breath and pulled it open the rest of the way – quick and brash, like ripping a bandage off a fresh cut.

He couldn't believe what was inside.

The book of South American maps with the missing page she had discovered in his study. The music box replica he had given her for Christmas. The small white seashell he had let her keep after completing a successful "blood test". The model swan maquette he let her take from his study. The small wooden carving of two clinging hands he had finished for her when she had given up.

Everything he had ever given to Esme, everything that held any amount of significance to their relationship was tucked away in that drawer. She had kept them all safe in one secret place where no one else could find them. Looking at all those objects together was like watching a slowed time progression of their blossoming love. Each gift he had given her grew more intimate as time wore on.

And there were not only gifts he had given her, but simple scraps and reminders of his presence as well. The pair of leather gloves that had grown too tight for his hands. A small chunk of yellow soap from the kitchen sink. A shallow beeswax candle he used to have on his desk. A leaf from the Costmary plant he grew on the window sill in his study. An empty fountain pen he had left in the library upstairs.

Opening that nightstand drawer was like opening a treasure chest that had been buried in the bottom of the ocean for centuries. It was more precious than gold to him, because it confirmed every inkling of his heart from the very beginning.

Breathless and shuddering, Carlisle suddenly knew exactly how he would plan Esme's spontaneous discovery.

He tore open the leather bag that held all of his love notes, and began to stuff the drawer full of them before he could change his mind.

There were so many letters they hardly all fit inside of the drawer. He didn't remove any of the things Esme already kept in there. All he did was infest the space with all of the other gifts he should have given her long ago.

As he filled Esme's bedside drawer full of his painstakingly private prose, desire spiraled like a ravenous serpent in the pit of his stomach. He had never before felt so high, so alive, so virile and dangerous.

Being so consumed by his maddening project, Carlisle was only slightly aware of the violent pounding coming up the stairs.

"Carlisle. What. Are. You. Doing?"

Edward was frozen in the doorway, staring at his father as if he'd finally snapped.

"Telling Esme that I love her," Carlisle answered boldly as he stuffed another handful of letters into the drawer. "It's brilliant, isn't it?"

Edward's eyebrows disappeared beneath his hairline. "Brilliant? It's insane! When is she ever going to look in that stupid drawer? You'll probably be waiting another year for her to find all of this!"

Carlisle ignored him and continued his frantic invasion of Esme's nightstand drawer. Edward uselessly pawed at the growing pile of letters, trying to steal them away before Carlisle could snatch them back again.

"You can't just leave these in here! You'll overwhelm her. It's too much! Just pick one at random and leave it on her pillow with that Goddamn rose! She'll get the picture!"

"No, Edward. This is how it has to be done. She deserves to see it all. Everything I've ever hidden from her. This is so...liberating!"

Edward now looked more frightened than annoyed.

"Carlisle, listen to me, you're not thinking straight. You have _got _to stop this. She's not going to understand it. She's just going to run scared."

"She won't. I know she won't," Carlisle argued passionately. "I've kept her waiting for too long. This is all she needs, and she'll know for certain how I feel about her."

Edward was bemused. "Good God. It's finally happened." His hands dropped hopelessly to his sides and his eyes went wide. "You've gone mad!"

"Make sure she doesn't come back yet!" Carlisle snapped, gesturing at the bedroom door. "Edward, go!"

"But you're doing it all wrong!"

"Go!"

"Arrggh!"

In a groan of frustration, Edward vanished.

For a moment Carlisle felt the seed of doubt threaten to sprout in the back of his mind. There must have been a reason Edward was telling him not to go about it in this way. Had he heard something in Esme's thoughts that told him she was not ready for a revelation of this magnitude yet?

Perhaps it was true. But Carlisle was stunned to find that he could not have cared less.

She would have to accept that his heart could no longer withhold all the love he had for her.

He sighed, and the sound of his breath echoed eerily in the carpeted room. The bedroom was quiet, and the air around him was soft and fragrant. Carlisle's chest felt hollow and strained as he stared into the drawer full of love letters. Somehow the complete mess of it all was satisfying.

In one shaky motion, he stood, closed the drawer, and stepped back. Nothing about the spot looked out of the ordinary. The dark wood of the antique nightstand was still scarred and scuffed. The drawer's mottled brass handle was still slightly crooked. Anyone who looked at that drawer would never guess the recklessly romantic havoc that was hidden inside.

The only hint he had left behind was the simple scarlet rose that lay on top of her nightstand.

Everything was as it should be.

He was leaving his heart for Esme to find.

******-}0{-**

Carlisle never left the property that morning. He wondered if Esme could sense his presence, if she knew that he could not bear to leave her until she discovered his secret.

He drove his car less than a quarter of a mile up the road to the top of the hill and parked it on the grass. From behind a cluster of pine trees he could see the top of the mansion and a good part of the backyard. Tiny brown birds hopped along the rooftop then swooped down from the top of the chimney, teaching each other how to fly.

The lake was calmer than he had ever seen it before. Like a sheet of crystal it stretched out to the base of the mountain on the other side, gently licking the shores. It was a clear day, not too warm and not too cold. It was perfect for spring – a little too perfect.

He settled on the side of the hill beneath a tree and watched over his property from above. The view from up here must have been a little like what the angels saw when they looked down from their heavenly perch. The house looked much smaller from this height. Much less significant. Much less majestic and intimidating.

Putting everything into perspective, his whole life was less intimidating when he watched it from the eyes of an outsider.

To think he had lived for over a year in this place, on the edge of his skin, waiting for Esme to leave valuable hints that might reveal her feelings for him. Now that Carlisle was almost certain she loved him, it seemed preposterous that he hadn't been able to notice it before.

He had been living life blind.

His hands gripped the grass and dirt as he leaned back on his elbows, breathing deep. A delicate ache began in his wrists and spread up his arms to his neck. For a split second he felt very human. Vulnerable, powerless, hopeful.

When he closed his eyes he could hear Esme's footsteps in the woods. The pattern of her path was unsure. He wished he could be holding her hand.

His fingers dug deeper into the dirt. The ache in his wrists exploded.

_Only a few more hours..._

Peeking out of one eye, Carlisle checked his pocket watch. His shift would have been halfway over by now.

He hoped Esme would return to the house before he had to go back. There was still a slight chance she would come across his letters in her nightstand drawer, even if she had no motive to look there.

Nerves began to fiddle around in his belly again.

As he expected they would, the tempting visions started. He imagined her flawless fingers twitching towards that brass handle, tugging it open, slipping her hands into the darkness of the drawer, feeling the crumpled corner of a piece of paper...

He saw her eyes, wide and wondrous, flitting across the words he had written, her face changing like sunlight at midday. He saw her fall to her knees on the deep blue carpet, her lips open to release a soft cry of shock.

He saw her coming towards him, her arms open and shaking, desperate to swallow his body in a violent embrace. He saw himself sliding a tiny golden ring on her finger and kissing it to seal his lifelong promise.

When his hands gripped the grass again, he felt her fingers gripping him back. When he leaned back and stared at the sky, he saw her eyes blinking down at him. He saw her hair flowing in the wind, her face hovering above his. He felt her body moving against his, her legs tight around his hips, her lips pinned to his own.

His mind swerved in a million directions as the fantasy pulled him under. Sharp, strong, heavy, soft, weightless, tender. Nothing made sense, yet it felt so right.

When he came back to the world, the sun was on the other side of the sky. The lake was no longer so calm, and the shadows were migrating across the forest below.

He didn't need to look at his watch to know what time it was.

He felt it.

He needed to see her.

His greatest desire was to be one with her, because he knew that linking his soul with hers was the only way to heal wounds too deep to see or even feel.

He hoped that one day he would share so much more with her than just his home and his possessions. He could share all of himself with her, and she would share all of herself with him. Their connection would no longer be such a mystery to him, but rather understood to the smallest detail, with depths and intricacies nested one within another, like the chapels and shrines in a cathedral.

Because he could not bring himself to face Esme right away that evening, Carlisle found ways to distract himself, hoping that she would come to him.

If she truly loved him, she would always come back to him.

A comfort in his heart told him she would. Peacefully, he retired to the back porch off his study with the leftover baked goods he'd brought home a few days ago.

When some men were feeling frustrated over their situation with a woman, they would find themselves overcome with the urge to sin. In times like this, Carlisle was instead overcome with the urge to give.

He was in a terrible place emotionally when no one in the world could receive what he had to offer.

Tonight, the birds were willing to accept what he had to give.

It brought him such sweet, deep relief to break bread and give it to the innocent creatures. Perhaps this was how Christ felt when he shared the last supper with his disciples.

They pounced around in the grass, singing for him, and their song was almost as touching as the sound of Esme playing the harp at night. There was not much he could compare it to, the satisfaction he felt from feeding those birds. He swore he recognized the same ones; they always came to visit him when he was feeling lonely.

It was remarkable to him that something as simple as bread could be such a treasure to these birds.

Deep down, he knew their hunger. He knew it well. He had felt the same appreciation when Esme showed him the simplest acts of kindness and care.

She fed his soul from the palm of her hand.

What a wonder to think that his own heart could be that valuable to _her _one day.

One thought of Esme seemed to summon her from the shadows. Carlisle turned slowly and saw her standing there in the doorway, watching him. The porch was such a small space in that moment, and he felt pleasantly trapped in place by her striking eyes. Her gaze was locked on his hands as his fingers crumbled the muffin and liberally scattered the pieces onto the grass.

The sun shone just behind the trees now, setting slowly as if it were afraid it might miss a crucial moment between them. Mellow oranges and pinks trickled through the clouds, surrounding a brilliant cerise eye of sunset.

Everything was twice as beautiful when Esme nearby.

His ears were alert to the sounds of the birds, but just barely. He offered a brief explanation for why he was feeding them, but she did not seem to retain his words. Her face was far away, though she seemed to be devouring the sight of him with her eyes.

The sunset was kind to her features. It made her eyes sparkle like sweet drops of honey, and her hair shine like copper silk. It illuminated every one of her hidden curves through her dress, tempting him with sweeping lines of faint light and fabric. When she smiled at him, her lips glowed a warm, fiery red – like the ink of henna leaves in summer.

Esme's beauty had never touched him so deeply before.

Moments dragged by like months as they stared at each other from across the porch. It was such a small space, he could feel her scent wrapping around him from where she stood. It kept him warm and made him feel protected.

His smile faded as his concentration drifted from her glistening eyes to the place where her hand had risen to rest over her heart.

He knew then, why she had done it. So many times before Carlisle would wonder the cause of everything Esme did. But now, his instincts served him well. His awareness was uncanny. He knew the reason behind this subtle feminine gesture.

Her heart ached. Her heart ached from watching _him. _

There were few gentle ways to set fire to a man's pride. Esme seemed to have found the most gentle of all.

Finding the bread had disappeared from his hand, Carlisle's fingers had no task left to distract themselves. If he did not hide his hands now, he feared they would reach out of their own accord to grasp her unexpectedly.

So he tucked them securely into his trouser pockets and remained completely still as he waited for her to react.

She looked down at last, noticing the pressure of her own hand against her breast. Her expression hinted mild embarrassment, but the longing was still there. He could see the burning ache in her eyes as she smiled weakly at him, turned around, and reluctantly vanished from the scene.

He could have followed her into the house. He could have caught her around some hidden corner in the dark hallway, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her beneath the last sliver of sunset that streamed through the window.

But he trusted her path would lead her to the place he hoped she would find.

For the first time in years, Carlisle felt a peace so utter and complete, he almost doubted the feeling was real.

All he had to do was wait. The task of waiting required no control. No skills or stress or time frame to race.

He slipped his hands out of his pockets, set them on the railing, and turned them over to see his palms. How good to know their work was finished. His hands had toiled over writing a hundred letters, and had tortured his own flesh in the process. His hands had produced art he would have otherwise been incapable of making without Esme's inspiration. They had held her back from danger and attempted to protect her from harm. And when all of this was over, their reward would be to touch her, more boldly and more tenderly than he had ever touched her before.

He sighed with a rich shudder and let his fingers curl closed. He folded both his hands into fists, closed his eyes, and felt the suppressed streams of his strength sweep through his body.

Behind his closed eyes he could sense the heat of the sun fading, but the heat of his breeched desires quickly replaced it.

His gaze lifted, and his breath quieted as he watched daylight's final second flash before his eyes. The forest went through beautiful changes when the dusk descended. Carlisle's favorite time of evening was right after the sun went down; the sky was still dotted with speckles of coral pink light, shimmering behind hazy clouds. The forest was bathed in blue and green shadows, like a lush lagoon.

The birds were all gone now, retreating to their nests for the night.

He was inspired to retreat into his own nest.

Coming into his study, Carlisle carefully lit one candle on his desk. He sat himself down, opened his journal and set his pen against the page, poised to write one last entry before his life would change forever.

_Before this evening, I was a man starved. Now I know the mercy meal has been promised to me. I am waiting in the shadows for the light to pass over me. I am awaiting her healing touch. _

_This life is not my own to spend in aching joys and feeble yearnings. If I cannot have her as my own, if I cannot touch her with my hands, kiss her ravenously each night, or whisper words of lover's whim to her ears, I cannot live. _

_My heart was cast in shadow until I found her. We were made for one another, by God's design. I am convinced that I could live another millennium and never find another woman as perfect as Esme._

_By tomorrow I will have placed my ring on her finger and my lips on hers. _

_By tomorrow I will have made her mine in every way possible._


	36. Justice for the Lonely Soul

**Justice for the Lonely Soul**

_Carlisle's POV of "Chapter 57: Those Unheard Are Sweeter"_

* * *

He hated when she was so far away from him.

Her distance from the house was hardly enough to cause worry, but it was just enough that he had to strain to hear the signs of her presence. This bothered him.

All night, Esme stayed outside. All night, Carlisle stayed in his study. He supposed he was secretly waiting for her to come back and join him as she had done every night before. But tonight was different. He could feel it, and he guessed she could feel it too. Even if she was all the way on the other side of the property, behind the trees, hidden in the night's shadows...

He really despised it when she was so far away from him.

Sighing, he closed his journal and stood from his desk to stare out the window. The beauty of the night struck him soundly. If only he could capture this beauty in his painting.

Carlisle shyly parted the red curtain by the window to reveal the place where he'd kept his painting hidden from prying eyes. He'd always felt there was something taboo about showing another person a piece of artwork if it was still a work in progress. It was like showing up at teatime half-naked and pretending not to feel selfconscious. People shouldn't see each other half-dressed. Why then, should they be allowed to see a painting when it was only halfway finished?

He wondered if Esme realized how subtly embarrassed he was that she had been peeking at his unfinished painting. The whole reason he had moved it to his study was so that there would be no more unauthorized boundary breaking on her part.

Esme's curiosity was one of the things Carlisle adored most about her, but it was this quality that forced him to see himself in a different light, often times when he didn't really desire to see it.

Lost in thought, he lifted his finger to the canvas and felt the dried streaks of oil paint, examining the texture in solemn fascination. He had worked on it for a small portion every day since she had discovered it, hoping to turn it into something worthy of enchantment. One day he hoped it really would be a window to "_Lake Cordial by Moonlight_."

Carlisle was determined that he would finish that painting before he and Esme were married. _If _they were married.

It would be an awful waste of a perfectly good ring if they never even managed to get engaged. That ring still felt like a little fire in his pocket. Every so often he pressed on it gently to be sure it had not fallen out.

Then he had to take it out and look at it in the light to be sure none of the diamonds were missing.

It looked even more stunning in candlelight.

He had to admit how radiant it was, compared to the bland assortment of diamonds in the jeweler's window in town. To think that those pitifully basic rings used to taunt him with their faint sparkles, like sad little stars on a morbid bed of black velvet. Esme's ring was far more special than all of those rings combined. The thought made Carlisle smile to himself. He had a certain young friend to thank for that.

He had no reason to believe that his pending proposal to Esme would fail. Unless of course, Edward turned out to be right about Esme's reaction to the love letters inside her drawer.

A chill of nervous energy flitted up the back of Carlisle's neck. Unable to fight the urge, he quickly opened the window to let the cool night air inside his study. He breathed in several times, deeply. A touch of panic infected his heart when he did not catch Esme's scent right away. But when the breeze swept in, it carried with it the intoxicating fragrances of lake water, pine, and sweet femininity.

_She was closer now_, he thought, comforted by the subtle evidence in the wind.

He looked back and forth between his painting and the scene it sought to become, staring between the lake outside his window and the canvas behind his curtain. Perhaps it was useless to try and reproduce something that he already had. He could look outside and see the real lake whenever he wished. Why would he need a picture of it, confined to one less dimension on a single panel of limited colors?

He knew if Esme were there she would have answered the thoughtless question with her own creative wisdom.

_Art was not just a copy of reality, it was one's personal interpretation of reality. _

It explained how two people could paint the same exact scene, and both paintings could turn out looking completely different.

Art was fascinating when one looked at it this way.

And when Carlisle pulled back the curtain just a little further and revealed the other piece of art he'd hidden behind it, he knew this was true.

It was old, delicate, and fragile. One touch could crumble the smooth brown wood that had endured travel and time. It leaned against the wall at a slightly crooked angle, humble yet defiant. It was a cross, made by faith, preserved by a lonely doctor's nostalgic needs.

There was no greater proof that all art was valuable in its own unique way.

Esme, Lord bless her soul, found beauty in it all.

He wanted her to teach him more about finding beauty in all things. In exchange, he could show her how to find holiness in all things. He knew her artistic eyes could find as much beauty in his body, if he laid himself bare for her. In exchange for this, he would worship her body with tireless devotion, only pausing to sate his thirst with a kiss.

Esme loved to paint everything in her reach. Why could she not paint _him_ in kisses?

His eyes were closed. Once again, he was dreaming.

Carlisle's world was turning into one long, consuming dream. His heart was cast in chiaroscuro, hidden from the real world. It was somewhat terrifying.

He clutched his stomach and pulled the curtains back into place, covering the artwork they were meant to hide. For so long he'd kept his letters to Esme hidden, too. Step by step he was becoming braver when it came to sharing the things he liked to hide. The first test was already in progress. All he had to do was wait to see the outcome.

When the night first began, he thought waiting would be easy. Now he wasn't so sure.

He was in the house alone. Only Edward was here. Esme was still a fair enough distance away that he could do it if he wanted to. Run upstairs and empty her drawer and put everything back into hiding.

No... _No._ He couldn't do that. Not when he had come this far.

_Just a few more hours,_ he told himself, calmed by the monotonous ticking of the clock. He reached out and gently gripped the heavy curtains by the window for support. A strange thought crossed his mind as he compared the thick, drape-like material of the curtains in his study to the flimsy, diaphanous material of the curtains in the master bedroom upstairs. If he were to hold this tightly to _those _curtains, they surely would have torn from the slightest force. Opening a window upstairs would have caused the night winds to rustle the curtains in a seductive dance. Down here, the curtains were still as stone.

One day, perhaps, he would watch those fine, gauzy curtains dance from the corner of his eye as he made love to his wife on the bed...

He had no idea why he thought of that.

His thoughts were growing ever stranger as the night wore on.

In the midst of his agony, he taunted himself incessantly, thrusting his surname upon hers and repeating the new name in his head countless times until it became a droning murmur in the back of his mind.

_Esme Cullen. Esme Cullen. Esme Cullen..._

Carlisle was not certain of many things, but he was certain he would be a good husband for her.

He would carry her upstairs every night if she allowed him to, and when they reached heaven, he would lock the door behind them, pocket the key, and lay her reverently down in their bed. And he would make love to her like the sun makes love to the earth every morning, sending spears of light into the soil and warming the fertile land. And when she could withstand no more of his warmth without burning, he would withdraw and whisper to her in the darkness until they needed each other again, and the cycle would never end. If he had his way, they would never go back down those stairs.

Somewhere in the house, Edward shifted uncomfortably.

Carlisle winced. It was just a desperate fool's fantasy, nothing more.

He gripped his forehead forcefully with one hand and slowly ran his fingers back through his hair. He was growing exhausted with these strangled desires.

"How on earth are you going to handle yourself when I leave for class tomorrow?" Edward murmured from a distant room, a light tone of humor to his deep voice.

Carlisle forced a shaky smile to his face though no one was present to see it. _I'll manage somehow, _he thought.

Edward muttered a wordless reply, not sounding convinced at all.

_I will make this work, _Carlisle assured, more for himself than for Edward's sake.

"I have a feeling you will," Edward sighed, the sound of a crooked smile holding his words together.

Carlisle was so shocked to hear his son agree that he started to doubt his plan was as careless as Edward originally thought.

All at once he became furiously impatient for the morning to arrive.

Edward chuckled. "Don't get too far ahead of yourself just yet."

_Always in check._

Carlisle frowned, reaching down to his desk for his stethoscope. In an old habit he began to idly twist the thin tube around his hand, lacing it through his fingers and looping it into varied knots that always came undone by themselves.

Someday soon, he could be twisting Esme's hair like this, lacing the silky strands through his fingers, looping her glorious locks around his wrist while he lay on the pillow beside her...

Edward hummed in disapproval. Carlisle glared at the wall.

He was beginning to feel more like the petulant teenager of the house. It was none of Edward's business where his thoughts led him tonight.

His actions could very well be mirroring some of those thoughts within the next twelve hours if he was lucky...

Edward sighed in a surprisingly forgiving manner. "Just don't get too elaborate," he whispered grudgingly. Again, there was a smile in his voice.

Carlisle wondered if his son had only chosen to stay inside the house with him for pure amusement. Edward couldn't have preferred staying inside doing nothing when the weather was so wonderful tonight.

"Who says I'm doing nothing?"

Carlisle's eyes wandered from wall to wall, listening for telltale sounds that might hint at what his son was really up to.

Aside from his suspicious chuckling, Edward was not so keen on giving clues.

"You know, the window up here has a _very _nice view..."

Something in the tone of the boy's voice was more than suggestive. Carlisle had to see for himself just what he was talking about.

In an instant, he sped like lightning up two flights of stairs and found the attic door unlocked.

_So that's where he was lurking._

Carlisle climbed the rickety old steps slowly through the shadows, as if he had any hope in sneaking up on his mind-reading son. Across the dark room he saw Edward bending awkwardly over the small circular window that overlooked the vast back yard. His silhouette was masked by dusty bluish light, but Carlisle could still make out an impressive mess of rumpled bronze hair, catching a glint off the moonbeams.

"Come here," the boy whispered, gesturing with his hand. His voice was loaded with furtive glee.

Insatiably curious as to what held Edward's attention, Carlisle cautiously approached the window, balancing on the shaky wooden beams that made up the floor.

His head just barely grazed the sloping sides of the roof as he walked. Like his son, he was a bit too tall to stand at full height while in the attic. Esme, on the other hand, could have fit perfectly without even hunching her shoulders.

"Look," Edward commanded, gently pushing his father's shoulder down so he could have a better view of what was beyond the tiny window.

All the way on the opposite side of the property, behind a fortress of looming evergreens, Esme lay in the grass, like a fallen angel glowing faintly in the moonlight.

She was, Carlisle thought, more exquisite than a porcelain doll. More tempting than a painting. He could not help but silently worship each feature of her face – her lips, twin cushions for his lust; her eyes, gilded windows to a world made of dreams.

She made him want to steal the moon and carry it upon his shoulders every night so that he could see her this way any time he wished.

Edward was right. This was a very, _very _nice view.

She looked so peaceful, so undisturbed in the fragrant night. As tempting as he found the urge to join her, there was still a forbidden delight in watching her from this secret perch behind the attic window.

"She's not _that_ far away," Edward mused half to himself, confirming Carlisle's embarrassing concern for her distance from the house.

_No... She's not, _Carlisle's mind acquiesced. He looked questioningly over at Edward in the dim moonlight, still hunched over to protect his head from hitting the ceiling.

Edward shrugged. "Peace of mind," he whispered, so quietly he may as well have mouthed the words.

Carlisle looked down, eyes half closed as he pretended to examine his wrist. _Thank you. _

After a long while, Edward suddenly spoke.

"She's thinking about you."

It was such a strange remark, uttered in his typical, broodingly masculine narration.

Startled, Carlisle turned to face his son, mouth open slightly in shock.

Edward's face was impassive as always. He shared no visible reaction whatsoever.

Carlisle turned quickly to look again at the beautiful woman lying vulnerable and alone in the dark, her slender white limbs spread out in the moist grass. She appeared to be smitten with the stars above her... Or could it be she was secretly dreaming of something else? Could it be that the stars were _not _what she found so captivating?

Carlisle reeled with questions, but mostly he wanted to know why his son had revealed something so personal to him in the first place. Edward _never _shared the private thoughts of another person unless there were crucial precedent to do so.

So what could have prompted him to do it now?

Carlisle carefully rested his fingers on the dusty glass, longingly caressing Esme's small figure in the shady distance.

_Why would you tell me that, Edward? _He queried through his thoughts, his eyes glazed.

He could faintly see Edward's face reflected in the window. The boy's expression was solemn and serious, but his eyes were filled with tender understanding. "I'd say it's getting…difficult for all of us to continue keeping secrets from one another."

By "difficult," Carlisle assumed Edward really meant "useless."

So many secrets were spilling left and right these days. Very soon, Carlisle feared he would be drowning in them.

"You're already drowning, Carlisle," Edward murmured. "When was the last time you came to the surface to breathe?"

The shadow of a melancholy smile crossed Carlisle's lips.

_When Esme knows of my feelings for her, and when she accepts all of me... Then I will breathe again._

"You may not have to wait much longer."

Edward's words hung in the air like a soft, promising song. The boy was gone in a flash, perhaps sensing his counterpart would likely need this time alone once the truth was out in the open.

Still in an awkward hunch by the attic window, Carlisle felt himself growing weak. In slow motion, he fell gracefully to his knees, still staring hard through the glass, as if he feared the lovely view would disappear at any instant.

Secret heat brewed in his chest, tiny collisions of sparkling matter and hardy energy battling between his ribs. Why would he need a beating heart when he could feel all of these wild sensations?

All at once he was doing it again. Falling into that trap of temptation. Imagining Esme, in the same position, in the same place outside… only bare. Bare as the bark of the trees that surrounded her.

As Carlisle clutched his chest beside the window, he wished for impossible things. He wished that the cloudless night would send shimmering rain down to coat her silky skin. That the moonlight would be hot enough to melt the dress from her body. That her voice would suddenly sigh for him, and he would go sprinting across the forest for her, take her in his arms, and bring her back to this warm house.

_Why should any of these things be impossible? _His mind seemed to ask him.

He brushed the taunting voice away and clenched his fist against the glass.

When he again focused his eyes on the distant scene, Esme was no more bare than his almost-finished canvas of Lake Cordial.

Dreams could be disappointing.

Before he became a doctor of medicine, Carlisle had only ever seen naked women in paintings. Pleasantly plump bodies with all their curves exposed, perfectly pink in all the right places; almost always reclining on some lavish surface, or twisted by convenience to provide ample view of their most inviting features.

The first time he saw a nude female in real life, he was in the hospital. That was when he discovered how different _patients _were from _paintings_. He had seen them all – emaciated, obese, scarred, wrinkled with age, ridden with rashes, many months pregnant... There came a comforting time in his life when he was convinced no female body could intimidate him in any way.

He thought he had seen it all. Until he found Esme.

Then he realized he had never seen the women in those paintings...in real life.

What would it be like, he thought, to combine the body of the painted woman and the body of the living, breathing, satin-fleshed woman he could reach out and touch?

This was why the mere thought of Esme in her melting dress made his throat go dry. She would be the answering echo to his thirsting imagination. The real woman's body, flawlessly combined with the sensual fantasies depicted in those gilded canvases.

When he closed his eyes, he could see it. Not as vividly as he wanted, but just enough details to make his veins race with feverish venom.

_Her rosy breasts, her supple tummy, her tender thighs. A sheen of loose caramel curls splashed over his pillow. A pair of small, roaming hands, determined to feel every inch of his flesh. _

The night seemed to curse at him, and at once he stood up, nearly bumping his head on the low slanted roof. With one hand holding him steady against the wall, he patiently snuffed out every one of his desires before going back downstairs.

Edward was preparing to leave the house for the morning, already sorting through his school supplies in the foyer. Carlisle passed his son wordlessly and went back to his study to stare out the window some more.

Edward paid him one last visit before dawn.

"You think she'll find them today? Your letters?"

Carlisle only shrugged.

A gentle eagerness infected Edward's usually monotonous voice. "Carlisle, if you give her some kind of…gift, she may be inclined to put it in that drawer with the others."

It was a good idea, one that had briefly crossed his mind before, but Carlisle thought that was a little too manipulative. He wanted this to be a natural process, with little to no interference at all from him. Esme had to find this all on her own.

"Suit yourself," Edward practically yawned. "I just thought with your..." He sighed and shuffled his feet before settling. "Never mind."

Carlisle was grateful, but a little sad when Edward headed for the door. He turned around to watch the bronze-haired teenager pause with his hand on the knob. "You know, I always believed you would be the one to tell her first."

Carlisle's thoughts were dark for a moment as he considered this strange remark, which somehow implied that Esme would be responding with the favored reciprocation of his feelings.

As certain as he'd felt of those feelings last night, every hour seemed to be washing away his confidence in the bold assumption.

With a fond but nervous smile, Carlisle asked his son through his thoughts, _Don't I get any credit for putting those letters in her room?_

Much to Carlisle's relief, Edward smirked wholesomely back. "Of course you do. Even though it's insane, it's still better than nothing."

Carlisle gave a sheepish chuckle and turned back to the window. "Take care, my son."

There were certain words he was not so afraid to say out loud. But silently, he added, _Perhaps when you return, an entirely new man will be here to greet you. _

"I don't doubt it."

Edward's parting farewell gave Carlisle's dimming confidence the hopeful burst of light it needed.

Staring at Esme from a distance had made his need to join her even stronger. For a moment he thought that he could do it. Break the doors down and run out into the night, sweep her off the ground and confess his love in a violent kiss.

But then his plan would be futile.

Somehow, he had to ensure that she would find those letters hidden in her room.

Slowly, he ventured out of the safety of his study, seeking a way to initiate his plan. The hallways were dark and hollow, haunting him just like the rest of the mansion.

Still lost in thought, he paused in front of the kitchen door, staring blankly at the empty laundry basket Esme had left sitting on the counter. He walked over and peered inside of it, then lifted it up and searched beneath it. He frowned.

Apparently she had not done the laundry at all that week.

It was not like Esme to forget her most beloved household chore.

Was something distracting _her, _too?

At a loss, Carlisle searched fruitlessly for something suitable to wear. He didn't want to waste the few good shirts he had left, in case Esme decided to skip the next few weeks of laundering. Hastily he decided he must wear something he wouldn't need to wear to the hospital.

Out of desperation, he soon found himself digging through the old wooden chest of clothing in his study, suddenly glad Edward was gone for the morning. Most of those old clothes struck him as being more costume-like than anything else. Surely he had _something _appropriate.

At the very bottom of the chest, buried beneath the lavish fabrics and ruffled jackets, he found the answer to his prayer. A simple, white cotton shirt. No buttons, no ruffles. He breathed a sigh of relief and tossed off the same blue tunic and vest he had been wearing for the past two days straight.

He lowered the loose white shirt over his head and didn't bother to tuck it in. He then switched his formal wool trousers for a more casual pair and threw his shoes and socks aside.

He had barely a glimpse of his reflection in the window, but seeing himself dressed this way brought back a rush of memories from times past. He realized now how much he had missed the loose fitting white poet's shirts of his time. There was a unique comfort to be found in wearing something without a tight line of buttons down the front.

The golden cross he wore around his neck was now the heaviest thing on his person.

Carlisle smiled awkwardly and brushed both hands through his hair, shaking it loose. His hair was almost as unruly as Edward's when he didn't care to comb it. The thought made him laugh briefly.

He really was nervous.

He couldn't bring himself to sit at his desk, but he did rearrange the surface several times. He searched through his drawers and peeked at his hidden painting behind the curtains. He lit a candle and watched it dance.

At long last the clock chimed five times, begging the sun to rise. Carlisle's chest tightened as he turned to see a bright layer of colors fan out over the horizon. Then he heard Esme's feet sifting through the grass on her way back to the house.

He forced himself to sit down as he listened to her enter the hall. He charted every sound she made in his journal, word for word, in broken sentences with the last bit of ink on his fountain pen. He would not have it go to waste.

He heard her presence grasping at the door to his study. He blew out the candle and let out a long sigh before standing up. Somehow he worried that being seated when Esme entered the room would make him feel more vulnerable. If he stood, he would surpass her in height. If he stood, it would give him power.

So he pushed back his chair and stood up.

Slightly panicked, Carlisle began to pace in front of the window, just as he heard Esme turn the knob.

He felt the familiar burn of her stare all the while, and her enchanting scent was making him dizzy. After just a few moments of watching him, she stepped gracefully across the carpet and, to his perpetual astonishment, seated herself at the opposite side of his desk.

As if she _knew_ that she belonged there.

His heart wept with joy. Under the spell of her presence, he stopped pacing to stare at her in wonder.

It was quite obvious that she hadn't read his letters yet. So why did it seem she already knew his secret?

Her gaze was searching, but somehow all-knowing at the same time.

He waited with bated breath, hoping and praying she would say something to mark her arrival. But she gave him no reason for her visit, no remarks to share why she was here.

She simply sat and stared. It as was invigorating as much as it was disconcerting.

Too nervous and confused to dare to speak for himself, Carlisle ensconced himself in the familiar rhythm of his pacing.

Did she find his behavior odd? Did she expect _him _to say something first? Surely she was aware of his feelings by now. After all, he was fairly aware of _hers..._

Hopefully his unprecedented silence wouldn't change her mind.

Confusion boiled relentlessly in his mind. What was she trying to do to him? Was this some sort of test?

His only defense was to bury his fingers in the curtains at the window and pretend to be distracted. If he could separate himself from her attention, then maybe she would misunderstand his discomfort.

The cool velvet fabric of the curtain was addictive to his fingers. He could feel her eyes following his every movement, and it encouraged him in ways it should not have.

Tension spread throughout the room like fire.

Then, finally, Esme's voice cooled the flames. "Where is the key to the attic?"

He stopped altogether, turned to open his desk drawer, and reached inside.

With renewed confidence, and a wholly beating heart, he embraced the desire in her eyes and handed her what she had asked him for.

"Right here."

And now he understood. The reason for their silence. The significance of those few exchanged words. The brilliance of giving her this small, symbolic gift.

The key. His final symbol.

He watched her carry it out of the room, and he listened to her journey up three flights of stairs. And suddenly, all anxiety washed away from his heart, and he was at peace.

Yes, he was confident Esme would be reading his letters today. Dangerously confident.

But he promised himself he would not interfere, no matter how the situation unfolded. He would let nature take its precious course. He would let God dictate how they came together in the end.

******-}0{-**

Even having the patience of a saint, waiting was not an easy thing for Carlisle to do.

Esme did everything _but _open her nightstand drawer that morning. She explored the attic, she hummed idly to herself. She even bathed.

She knew exactly how to torture him, putting on an exquisite show of sounds and scents until the very last second.

When he could take no more of it, he cut himself off from the rest of the world. He drowned himself instead in the world of ink and paper, buried deep within his mind. His hands grasped the Bible, and clung tightly to the unchanging truth between the pages. No sounds could penetrate this world of his very own. Not even the distant rustling of Esme's destined discoveries.

He was only brought back to reality by the sound of his own name, a warm whimper that came from a woman's lips.

It all happened very quickly, but his mind was slow to process the scene as it played out before him.

He looked up, and he saw Esme. It was no different than any other time he looked up to see her.

"What is it?" he asked.

But the moment the words left his mouth, he realized he had not needed to ask.

Without a word, she opened her arms and let the pile of letters fall to the ground. They fluttered around her legs like a flock of doves fainting on the carpet.

Her pale hands were outstretched like the petals of a lily, and his heart jumped at the sight of the scorching blue ink smeared all over her fingers.

He spoke her name, and instantly flushed at the sound of it. The ragged depth was enough to make fire bleed. This was not _his_ voice, it was the voice of his soul.

To his everlasting thrill, Esme's soul responded. "I love you."

Then she was gone.

Within the same second, Carlisle's most fervent desire and his most potent fear had come true. In that second, he had no idea what to do.

How could he let her disappear?

He had _not _imagined what she said. Not this time. This was real. Painfully, dangerously real.

He had to run after her.

One thought triggered the reaction in a fraction of a second. But even a fraction of a second was time wasted.

A gasp fled his lips, his heart pounced to life. He took a single breath in preparation to run, and it tasted like fire.

Then he felt the sting of God's whip on his ankles, and he was off.

Carlisle was confident that he had never run this fast before in his life.

But he still couldn't keep up with his restless newborn. Esme still bested his speed.

He let out a hysterical sob of frustration as he sliced through trees and boulders to reach her. The beauty of nature had risen to terrible proportions that morning. Sunlight drenched the earth, and the air was positively glistening with the aftereffects of a sweet spring shower. Glowing greens and rich, jewel-like browns flooded his vision as he swept past, seeking out one color that would give away the woman he chased.

Possessed by passion, he did not even stop to gather his whereabouts. There was no time. He could _feel_ her presence, so clearly. All he had to do was follow his instinct and never look back.

Because when Esme ran away from him, he would readily swim through oceans, crawl on hands and knees across the hottest of deserts, and scale the highest, coldest mountains. He would chase her to the ends of the earth until he could have her in his arms again. Any distance would have been worth it, but this time he knew he did not have to look any further than his own backyard.

Nearly at his wits' end, Carlisle found himself storming through a sparkling glen of willow trees as he came full circle toward the banks of Lake Cordial. His legs felt like spears as they cut through the water, and his arms like wings as he flung green willow fronds out of his way. Then the air began to change.

It had been only forty-six seconds since he'd started his run. Forty-six excruciating seconds where he felt like Moses wandering the desert – empty, dry, and lagging in his faith. Until he found her.

She stood trembling and all alone, up to her knees in water, her face shining like a pearl. Her long hair flowed out in the wind like a spread wing, her curls playing giddily against each other, the flashing colors like rust and honey in the sun.

He was so elated to have found her, at first he had no words worthy enough to say. He was so deathly afraid that she would suddenly take off running again... If he did manage to say something, he had to make his words count.

With his hands clinging desperately to the vines of the willow tree, Carlisle leaned forward and let the sun blind his eyes.

"Marry me."

Esme stopped every movement, stood utterly still in the water, and stared up at him as if she were witness to a vision from another world. He could see the mist of disbelief in her eyes, but all it did was fill him with the vigorous urge to make her _believe_ what he said was true.

He stepped forward, cautiously at first, desperately hoping that she would not run again. The wind wrapped around him from behind, pushing him closer to her, like the hands of loving angels guiding him toward his destiny.

Even before he heard her say the word, he was smiling. It was pure instinct, a voice from deep within that told him she had already accepted his request, a thousand times since the very first day he'd wished to ask her.

"Yes," she spoke, her eyes glistening under the sun's glare.

Within moments he was there in front of her, a part of her very presence as he'd always longed to be. He scooped her up into his arms and held her more tightly than he'd ever dared to hold anything before. He competed against all the forces of the earth when he had Esme in his arms. He could be stronger than gravity, sturdier than stone, hotter than fire ... _all for Esme._

It may have all started out as the fantasy of a lonely man's delusional heart, but this time Carlisle knew it was real.

Emboldened by ecstasy, he raised Esme up with both arms toward the sky. He watched the childlike glee fill her eyes as he lifted her far above him, her head blocking out the light of the sun. Her smile took the sun's place in the sky, and Carlisle thought it a perfect substitute for the great star. He had no doubt that flowers would flourish, waters would rise, trees would grow, and love would thrive under the light of Esme's smile.

For this tiny, thrilling moment, Carlisle was prouder than the richest of kings – and he was not ashamed to feel that pride radiating through him as he held the love of his life aloft for all the world to see.

He watched the sun's rays spread out around her hair like a halo, illuminating her for what she really was. Afraid the sky might suddenly steal her from him, he pulled his saving grace back into the safety of his arms and promised her that he would never let go.

Neither the sky above, nor the water beneath him could touch her. The only thing she was allowed to touch was _him. _He made sure of it.

As he listened to Esme whispering _yes _after _yes _after _yes _in his ear, the joy he felt was downright excruciating. Carlisle never thought he would deserve to feel or hear or see something so perfect, but at the same time, he savored the pure, honest power that came with it. For the first time, Carlisle felt he was able to stand firmly upon the ground of the earth and not hold the slightest fiber of regret for what he was.

He felt so _complete _it made him cry.

Esme was so warm in his hands; so indescribably warm. Her arms slid around him, like bands of silky sunlight, protective and dependent at once. Engulfed in a typhoon of unfamiliar emotions, Carlisle could find no source of stability except in the heady center of Esme's gaze.

Staring down at her, he saw a new world opened up to him, one filled with richer colors and sweeter desires. Although she was no longer saying the word out loud, he could read the word "yes" on her lips, over and over as she lost herself in his eyes. He should have been rejoicing in this moment, celebrating the world he had finally unlocked for himself after years of suffering and torment. But one marvelous, heartbreaking notion still sang endlessly in the back of his mind.

"I've never been this..._close_ to anyone before."

His confession came out in a soft, broken cry. Esme's eyes widened when she realized what he meant by the words, how very literal they were.

He saw so many things in her eyes right then – fear and pain and pity, but also wonder and hope and desperation.

He was certain his own gaze mirrored hers. The thought had crossed his mind many times before this moment, but never had it been so sure, so unstoppable in its intended path. This time, his desire would crush every obstacle that dared to block his way.

He could see it in her eyes, that she _knew _he was going to kiss her, and she _knew _that nothing would stop him from doing it now. And that thrilled him more than the idea of kissing her alone did; seeing the utter thirst in her wide, burning eyes as she accepted her thrilling fate.

Hers were the first lips he had ever touched, and they would be the last as well.

The world around them fell to blissful pieces when he kissed her lips. A fertile vine of warmth grew rapidly within him, curling through his body, stirring a hidden river of strength and vigor deep inside. Everything he strived so hard to keep hidden throughout his life seemed to spill from his lips into hers as he kissed her. He had no secrets anymore, no reason to keep anything from this woman with whom he would soon share his soul.

He could hear her whimper as he moved his lips, and the soft sound filled his belly with fire and made his arms feel ten times as strong. Heat and love grasped him everywhere, and he emulated their grasp with his own two hands, holding Esme closer and closer until she felt attached to his body.

When the bliss became too much to bear, he gently parted their lips, calming himself with the promise that he could kiss her anytime he wished now. And when he needed to speak, he could _say_ anything he wished.

"I love you, Esme," he declared. For the first time ever, he was saying it out loud, and he wanted the world to hear it.

He felt a shiver sweep through her small body as he held her, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "The poem you slipped into my sketchbook on Christmas morning… You were the one who wrote it, weren't you?" Her fingers desperately touched every inch of his face, making sure every one of those inches was real.

"Yes, I was the one," he confessed, his chest swelling with pride. "Yes. Yes, I wrote it."

Esme was incredulous. "And the letters? All of those letters?"

"One hundred," he confirmed with a nod. The number sounded so staggering and intimate as he whispered it against her forehead. "I wrote one hundred of them. I saved only half. The others were burned."

Esme's fingertips felt like flames as they settled against his mouth, her beauty amplified by the look of pure wonder on her face.

"You have no idea how many nights I wanted to slip just one letter beneath your door... how much I tortured myself over it," he said longingly. No amount of fear could stop the words now. "I've loved you since..." His knees buckled at the memories, his voice breaking down. "Oh, I cannot even bear to think it..."

He touched his lips to her forehead again and again, tasting every part of her face that tempted him. She was a feast to consume, both physically and emotionally... even spiritually. But partaking in that course would require ample preparations on his part – preparations for which he knew he was not yet ready.

Still, he could not hold himself back from the urge to take purchase in what he had in his arms. Esme was _his_. The heat of possessiveness overtook him with ease, and he crushed her – mouth to mouth, and chest to chest.

The soft weight of her breasts against his body made him unsteady, and his legs nearly gave way from the entirely foreign sensation. She was so unabashedly female, it hurt him. The idea that this woman could belong to him and could willingly accept his claim on her, was staggering.

Sensing that his constant sobbing was ruining their kiss, Carlisle reluctantly pulled away and carried his kisses south, decorating her exquisite neck in his venom. A spark of virile energy inflamed his chest as his teeth gently grazed the scars of his first bite on her flesh. Esme shuddered when he became more attentive to the sensitive spot, and he took her reaction as wordless encouragement.

His name never sounded so enticing as it did when she said it, throatily against his ear.

"I've needed you," she cried softly, her voice like a desperate lullaby. Her hands sank into his hair and grasped the back of his neck. "I've needed you for so long..."

Her slender legs tightened rapturously around his middle, and all at once it felt as if someone were tossing hot coals against his groin. Arousal simmered inside of him, but it was in his heart where he felt it the strongest. Where the sensation of being aroused once seemed dangerous and sinful, it now seemed almost reverent.

"Oh, my darling," he wept into her velvet skin. "I shall never forgive myself."

As much as he hated to see Esme cry, she looked absolutely bewitching when she was shaking with sobs. Such was the effect his words had on her.

He had many more words to share with her, if that were the case.

"Do you know how long I've wanted to tell you?" he cried in earnest, exposing his heart with every word. "Do you know how my heart aches whenever we are apart? How my soul thirsts for union with yours?"

Her eyes were wreathed in sorrow and passion, worshipful yet touched by pity for his torment. She shook her head, disbelief misting her gaze.

"You never knew." He firmly took her face between his hands, determined to make her see the truth. "You never even guessed?"

"How could I have?" she asked incredulously, her long eyelashes catching glints of sunlight when she blinked. "Your compassion has never changed, Carlisle. Since the beginning you were so impossibly kind to me, so caring for no reason." Her right breast pressed appreciatively against his heart as she spoke. "You've always been this way with me. You've always treated me with love. I'd never recognized it to be anything less..._never_..."

Her eyelids drifted shut as she shook her head, the friction warming the palms of his hands. He breathed over her face, his instincts begging him to lean in closer. He watched as she trembled and her head tilted back, as if she were expecting another kiss.

She would receive it soon enough.

"Stay with me," he said, his voice like stone. "Forever, Esme." His cheek pushed harshly against hers, and his lips were helpless to kiss every spare inch of her skin that had not yet been marked. "Say you will be mine, always."

"Yes, always yours," she sighed. He felt her body go utterly limp in his arms. "I am yours, Carlisle."

His desperate whimper was muffled as his lips planted a garden of kisses on her cheek. And like a good gardener, he cupped her chin and buried the seed of his final kiss on her mouth, the most fertile spot in this garden.

He tended gently at first, but he was impatient to see what beauty would come of the seed he had planted. The heavy cloak of desire blinded his eyes, and he felt his kiss blossoming into something more passionate. Esme whimpered and struggled against him, victimized by his reverent determination.

When he felt her legs quaking around his waist, he could no longer hold himself upright. The strong knees of Atlas gave way, and he submitted to the lapping waters of the lake beneath him.

The waves tried to carry Esme away from him, but Carlisle refused to let her go. She was just as determined to keep hold on him. Her arms, though small, still surprised him with their newborn strength. She held him so tightly it almost frightened him, yet he found her fierceness appetizing.

Beyond the haze of his passion, he could hear the sweet echo of her distant cries and laughter. He couldn't help but laugh and cry harder as he ran his soaking fingers through her hair.

His kisses were clumsy and slippery, but it didn't matter. They moved against one another in the water like disoriented lovers, each still so unfamiliar with the other's body. They were so lost in the moment, they did not have the willpower to let their own inexperience hinder their frantic exploration. But very soon all of that would change. Very soon, that uncertainty and inexperience would be gone forever.

For now, it was beautiful.

Beautiful to be touched by someone whose fingers were more shaky than sure. Beautiful to be held be someone whose strength brought physical pain. Beautiful to be kissed by someone whose lips were still tainted with the taste of chastity.

Carlisle could feel the water growing warmer around them, and he was vaguely certain the heat was radiating from his right trouser pocket...

_The ring. _

He did not even care that he'd forgotten to give it to Esme before asking her to marry him. Carrying her halfway across a lake and falling into the water as he confessed his feelings was about as untraditional as a proposal could get. That was what made it perfect.

But he did not want her to spend one more second of her life without his ring on her finger.

With his lips still buried in her neck, Carlisle begged Esme to give him her hand.

Blindly, she extended her right hand for him to take. Their flurry of desperate kisses ceased immediately as they both paused to watch her hand glisten in a ray of sunlight between them.

He watched her eyes grow dark and wide when he swiftly traded her right hand for her left.

Taking the ring from his pocket, he was almost relieved to offer its haunting weight to another. For as light and small as it was, some spiritual craft had made that ring feel heavy and hot to the touch.

Carlisle never took his eyes away from Esme's as he gently secured the ring onto her designated finger. His heart shuddered with joy and pride at the look of brilliant wonder on her face. She knew the symbolic beauty behind this ring he had chosen for her.

Her lips parted in awe, and he had to fight every urge to fill the space between them with his tongue.

From now on, he supposed, his deepest desire would always be to fill _all _the empty spaces in Esme's body and heart.

She suddenly looked up at him, her eyes glowing like drops of sun, her skin shining like the harvest moon. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his face all over with reckless adoration. Carlisle could barely decide whether to laugh or cry as her lips lovingly kindled the curve of his jaw. She tightened her hold around his neck and finally locked him in a furious kiss, mouth to mouth.

He felt the slick burn of the golden band around her finger as she passed her hand against his bare skin, and it almost broke his control.

All of his wildest fantasies came rushing back, consuming his senses in a tempting catechism of what his life _could be_, now that Esme was his. His fingers tangled into her long caramel locks and pulled her closer, his lips dancing roughly against hers. He only had mercy on her when he heard her struggling for breath, and he sought satisfaction in the vulnerable curve of her neck.

He painted her scars with the tip of his tongue, investing all of his energy into an invisible work of art. Words without meaning spilled from his lips – frenzied, ardent words that had spent centuries burning in the darkened depths of a lonely man's soul.

"I never knew love could be like this," he murmured against her sweet skin. "I'd all but given up hope of finding it."

He lifted his head to stare down at her, his lips trembling and aching from his gratuitous kisses. The ache swelled when Esme dared to touch her finger to his lip, shaking her head in denial of his heartbreaking confession.

"Don't say that... Don't ever say that," she practically begged. Her voice was soft and halting as she forced him to hear the truth in her words. "You have me now. You have my love, Carlisle. All of it. Everything I am is for you."

She pressed her hand into his chest, hard.

He released a deep, tremulous sigh and bowed his head to touch hers, his hand clutching her back.

"Tell me again," he ordered, his voice weakened by secret intentions. His hand stirred the water, seeking out Esme's ring finger.

"I am yours." Her words echoed like music in his ear, nearly bringing him to tears as she twisted her finger decidedly around his.

Because he dared not weep, he could only laugh. Weak, breathless laughter that made his throat feel tight and his chest feel numb. He traced his knuckle across her cheek, for the hundredth time reminding himself that she was not a figment of his dreams.

"How can I be so blessed? Tell me, Esme... How?"

She responded with a fierce kiss, and Carlisle was thankful for it, for his lips now felt naked without hers pressed against them.

Time passed quickly when one was consumed by a kiss. Carlisle lost grips on everything but the woman in his arms, until their lips finally parted. Reconciled by their love, they rested on each other's shoulders, savoring the profound words they had exchanged on this day.

Weary with joy, Carlisle glanced up from their breathless embrace and soaked in his surroundings. He wanted to remember every detail of this moment. The canopy of willow trees not far behind them, caparisoned with wild blossoms of sunlight. The dreamy blue sky that seemed to stretch on forever. The tiny clusters of flower seeds that floated blissfully through the springtime air.

Everything was so green and fair and full of life. Flocks of birds sang their jubilation as they flew overhead. The lake itself seemed warmer than bathwater around his legs and waist.

Carlisle had so many things he wanted to write about in this moment. He could have filled an entire journal, recording only the events of this day...this hour...this minute.

There was no feeling more precious than the feeling of being loved. He would never be able to fathom his fortune in finding a woman like Esme to fulfill his soul's deepest longing. She could offer him so much more than his dreams would allow.

For the first time in Carlisle's long life, the feeling of loneliness was entirely forgotten.

At last, he was completely at peace.

* * *

**Thank you all for the wonderful reviews and messages. They are a constant inspiration to me!  
**


	37. Pure as Doves

**Pure as Doves**

_Chapter 58 from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

Holding Esme was like holding sunlight.

In some small ways, it bothered Carlisle that she felt this way to him. Because sunlight was impossible to hold onto. It fled through tiny spaces and escaped very quickly. It was so warm, but so difficult to grasp.

Right now, Esme still felt like sunlight. But right now she was also giving him every reason to believe she would not flee through tiny spaces or escape very quickly. She was still warm, but she grasped _him _just as tightly as he grasped her.

_"It took you long enough."_

Edward was so very right.

When Carlisle heard his son's words, a bolt of lightning pierced his heart. He would never forgive himself for all those days he had wasted without Esme in his arms. Now that he had her to himself, all he seemed capable of doing was attaching himself to her like a leech.

He didn't even hear his name being called whenever he kissed her.

Because when he kissed her, he was lost. He wandered aimlessly in a dream, in an otherworldly dimension full of sweet, rosy promises and shining beams of lust. His heart was heavy with desires that ached to break free, and every time he kissed Esme, he surrendered just a little bit more of his control.

One day he would break apart in her arms. He looked forward to that day. Or that night...

"Carlisle." Edward sounded like a strict father.

Carlisle looked up when he heard his name.

Edward may have sounded strict, but he looked sensitive. "Can we all just...discuss this? Maybe?"

Carlisle shook his head in confusion. "What is there to discuss?" A brilliant sensation of complete liberation consumed him as he looked down into Esme's face. "We're getting married." It took a second to process the reality of those words. "Esme and I are..."

_Glued by the lips, yet again. _

He grinned like a child on Christmas morning as he kissed his fiancée senseless.

"Married. Yes. That is what I think we need to discuss," Edward said firmly.

Reluctant though he was to lose the little piece of heaven that was Esme's mouth against his, Carlisle spared his son the attention he sought. "What is it, Edward?"

"You don't mean to marry Esme...traditionally, do you?"

Carlisle was confused for less than an instant before Edward's nervous demeanor suddenly made sense.

"I..." He stopped, speechless, as his smile faded.

_For God's sake, how could I overlook this? She wouldn't last a minute around a priest if I took her to get married in a church..._

Esme immediately sensed something was wrong. "What does he mean, Carlisle?"

Edward cut in promptly. "I mean there's a world of difference between simply finding a mate and getting married."

As Esme turned to him in a panic, Carlisle wanted nothing more than to calm her as quickly as possible. "We'll take care of everything when the time comes," he said softly.

"It's coming a bit fast, don't you think?" said Edward.

_Edward, don't intimidate her._

Carlisle gave his son a look of warning as Esme reached up to jostle his shoulder. "We _can _get married, can't we?" she demanded, her eyes flashing with worry.

"Yes," his answer was blunt and bold. "We can."

Her face relaxed and her fingers loosened on his shoulder.

Edward, however, was not comforted. "Carlisle, there's more to consider—"

"I understand, son. It's alright." He stared significantly at his son, speaking more thoroughly to him through his thoughts. _We have to take things slowly for the time being. Don't make it seem impossible for her, or she'll never have the courage to keep trying. _

The faintest understanding glistened in Edward's eyes as Esme suddenly faced him with a desperate look on her face. "You're happy, Edward... Aren't you?"

"Of course I am," he replied honestly with a kind smile. "I'm just looking out for you."

"We'll find a way to make it work," Carlisle said, trying as much to convince himself as his counterparts. They both stared at him with their beseeching golden eyes, looking to him for guidance and reassurances. Like so many times in the past, Carlisle recalled what it felt like to play the role of the leader. Until that moment, he had never been so fully confident in his ability to direct his own coven.

He gave a brief nod to his son before turning back to his soon-to-be wife. "Anything you want, we'll have," he told her, fierce with determination. He could see the touch of a forbidden thrill in her eyes, and he hoped it meant she was thinking of much more than just a wedding. He reached out for her, clasping the sides of her face in his hands as he stroked his thumbs over her cheeks. "If you want a wedding, I can give you that."

It felt wrong to leave her in the dark, almost a little like betrayal, which was not something Carlisle wanted to start just before their marriage. Esme was a woman who deserved nothing less than the truth... and he would give it to her in due time. Just not right now.

Now, he would give her a kiss. And there was so much more than truth in that.

******-}0{-**

Stars used to seem almost sinister to Carlisle when he was alone in the world. He sometimes used to feel them watching him, like a thousand scrutinizing silver eyes following his every move. He would step into the night, and even when it was humid and warm outside, he would feel nothing but cold creep over his skin. Empty and cold. That was all he'd ever felt at night.

Now the nighttime felt warmer than daytime. Like a thick blue blanket, the darkness draped over his body and encouraged him to act on the dreams that were unspeakable in the light of day.

Now Carlisle wanted to impress those stars that watched from above. He wanted to show off the beauty he would soon marry by escorting her all across the grounds. The stars either squinted at him in envy or winked at him in pride, while the moon gladly lit his path and made his fiancée look twice as breathtaking.

The night was fragrant and deep, swarming with stirring sounds and scents that would ignite a fever in lovers' hearts. Leaves trembled and moonbeams danced and the waves of Lake Cordial beckoned him with their watery whispers. Everything was alive and full of excitement. Every move felt forbidden, but at the same time, like it was meant to be.

For the time being, he supposed he would never want to be inside a house again.

He could not fathom the pleasure he felt from watching the sunset slowly fade into night with Esme in his arms and nature all around them. They did whatever their hearts bid them to do, and they asked no questions. They acted on whims and explored nothing in particular, roaming with no direction between the trees. They chased one another and snatched fireflies from the air and whispered senseless words of affection in the dark. Their clothes were wrinkled and streaked with earth by the time dusk rolled in, but they didn't care. Nothing made sense and everything was perfect.

Feeding off a wild energy he'd never experienced before, Carlisle sped through the forest with Esme on his heels, a hundred different intentions flaming in his mind. His plans warred together as he ran with her across the grass, holding her hand all the while. When he'd started running he had no idea where he was headed, but all of those intentions quickly merged into one known destination.

The willow tree.

He slowed down, breathless from giddy bouts of laughter, when he reached the dangling curtains of green leaves. Esme breathed against his shoulder where she stood behind him, and her presence was thicker than the night air. He tugged her down the slope toward the banks of the lake, stepping carefully over stones in the grass. The marshy ground gave like moist sponge cake beneath his feet, and he had the sudden urge to remove his boots.

But he never did get around to taking his boots off. There were much more exciting things to do beneath the willow tree.

One of those exciting things was kissing.

No one had ever explained to Carlisle what kissing would feel like. He had tried to imagine it countless times while sitting alone at night before a crackling fire _**– **_most especially in those solemn days near Christmastime when his loneliness was at its peak. It still put a pang in his heart to remember the times when he would try to write his thoughts on how a kiss from a beautiful woman would feel. Usually he would end up sobbing and feeling too weak to write at all. Thinking of things like that had been too painful.

But now his sensitive soul was free to rejoice in his discovery of a woman's kiss. He had always known it would feel divine...but he never guessed it would feel like _this. _

It was a bit like drinking blood, only instead of quenching his thirst, it only seemed to make him thirstier. In a strange way, he thought it was also like sewing _**– **_a detailed process, threading a needle through layers of fabric, trying to make the seam look invisible to other eyes. Though kissing was very much a physical action, he felt it had more to do with what was happening _inside _of him as he moved his lips against Esme's. Things changed and shifted in obscenely pleasant ways, emotions raged and shuddered through him, driving him to a breaking point he did not know existed. If he focused enough, he could touch his lips to hers without being completely consumed.

But that was difficult, and quite beside the point.

Esme's lips were even softer than those marshy shores of the lake. They were more pliant than candle wax, and sweeter than flower nectar. Most fascinating of all was how they responded to him, not only in words but in motions. In little twists and nips and bites. He felt powerful and adored when Esme kissed him back, and although his knees threatened to buckle every time she did it, he still felt like a fairytale hero, because that was how she saw him.

He could feel it in the way she clung to him with all her might. She thought he was her savior, when really it was she who had saved him.

Somehow he found the strength to break away from her enticing lips, to adjust once again to breathing on his own. He relaxed his forehead against hers and listened to their breathless harmony, aching for oneness. One body or not, Carlisle felt that he was already tethered to Esme, in an irreversible curse.

Like the sound of a shadow itself, she spoke to him in the darkness. "I don't know how to let go of you."

The sheer romance of her words made him blush with pride. "Then don't."

Her hands gripped him as if she were drowning, and his thoughts were peppered with sinful things.

Between gluttonous kisses, he heard her form the words, "How can this be real?"

Because he had no answer for her, he kissed her harder.

The night was a beautiful blur. They spoke to one another about nothing in particular. They murmured fragments of affection and love, whispered each other's names as they explored the forest, and made unrealistic promises to one another as they kissed by the banks of the lake. Life as they had known it was no longer something they acknowledged. In one night, everything had changed for both of them. They were now free to indulge themselves in everything they had ever dreamed about.

It was strange to forget what it felt like to pine after something he could not have. Carlisle spent too long aching for things he thought were impossible to possess. Now, lo and behold, he had a woman in his arms, her eyes shining only for him. The world indeed worked in mysterious and wonderful ways, but he'd never believed it until now.

He could never seem to find his fill with Esme, though he had her beside him the entire night. Now that he no longer had to resist the urge to touch her or say something intimate to her, he felt overwhelmed by his siege of ceaseless instincts. He touched her everywhere _**– **_her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, her forearms, her hands. Each spot of soft white skin beckoned him in the moonlight until there was no visible space left untouched. He confessed things to her that he probably should not have confessed, but she drank in his words like wine. After every exchange, no matter how insignificant, they marked their progress with a passionate kiss, lounging in the dewy grass with their legs tangled and their heads resting against one another.

Their closeness brought Carlisle unimaginable peace. Wrapped in Esme's arms, he thought of all the cravings he kept secret, and how they would not be secrets for much longer. In one second's time he could think of a thousand and one ways to touch Esme, and he mourned the fact that there were not enough hours in the night to demonstrate every one. Carlisle promised himself that, someday, he would lay her down somewhere dark and private, and he would fulfill this fantasy.

He smiled to himself, shuddered, and held her closer.

The silky, rippling sounds of the lake beside them were very arousing. The seductive variations on a repetition both puzzled and soothed him. Those lake sounds were familiar to him, but they had never sounded this way before. In fact, looking around, Carlisle realized the entire world was just the same...but so much different.

For the first time ever, he spent an entire night curled up beside a woman. In the grass, under the stars, staring into her eyes. Touching and kissing. Kissing and touching. It never extended beyond that, but it was more thrilling than anything he had ever experienced before.

The sun rose as it had every other morning of his life. But today it looked exotic and heavenly, greeting him with a burst of endless oranges and pinks from across the water. Esme sighed his name and buried her hands in his hair, and her eyes were too tender to withstand.

So Carlisle looked up to the sky above him with unfathomable tears in his eyes, and he whispered, "I don't think my life could be more perfect right now."

******-}0{-**

The only time Carlisle allowed himself to be alone at home was when he went to his study to work on his painting. Everything else, he did with Esme by his side.

It was even hard for him to spend those thirty or so minutes beside his canvas every day, and even then he usually had to sneak out and visit her for a while before he could go back to painting. It hurt to do anything without her.

He told her this, and she laughed at him. Not a jeering kind of laugher, but a light, sparkling laughter that made his belly tighten. Then she kissed his jaw, and tugged on his earlobe, and said that he never had to worry about doing anything without her, because she would be right here for him whenever he needed her.

And she was.

During those rare times when he required the privacy to work on his painting, Esme would hole herself up in the music room next door and play on her harp. Her sweet, soothing music served as the perfect inspiration for his paint strokes. Every night he saw his beloved Lake Cordial becoming more and more real on the canvas. Eventually he thought it would become so realistic that the water would flow from the painting and flood the room.

He had a feeling Esme would be impressed. But as dearly as he wished he could show it to her now, he promised himself he would wait until their wedding day to let her see it.

Then they could make paintings together every day if they wanted to. Maybe one day she would even let him paint _her_.

The thought made him pause as he sedulously cleaned the bristles of his paintbrush. Carlisle had always known Esme to be somewhat shy about those kinds of things. He could imagine her bashful expression if he'd asked her permission to paint her portrait. She would probably tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear and stare at the floor and cock her head to the side with a lopsided smile as she considered his request. It was a classic reaction of hers, and he damn well adored it.

Yes, he would definitely be asking her to pose for a portrait one day soon. Preferably after they were married. After all, he still hadn't had the opportunity to study the artistic nude...

Painting really wasn't supposed to be this arousing, was it?

_Everything was arousing these days. _

Carlisle sighed and set down his brush, stepped back to look at his painting, and decided it was almost finished. The final touches would be easy. Showing it to Esme would be the hardest part.

He covered the painting with the curtain like he always did at the end of the night, and then he spent a few quiet moments by the window, listening to Esme's harp in the next room.

And he wondered if her little hands could possibly move any faster.

And he wondered if she made music the same way that she would make love.

******-}0{-**

There were many times when Esme doubted herself, but none were so painful as the times she lost faith in her self control. Carlisle was not blind to Esme's desires. Even before he knew she loved him, he was at least aware that his ability to mingle freely with humans was something she coveted. It was strange to know that she was jealous of him in some ways, but not unreasonable. He had to work with her to take care of her insecurities before they were married. Like many things, he considered it his duty.

It pained him to hear her question her future. Every time she asked him one of those shaky _What if's?, _he became a little bit angrier with himself. He felt he wasn't doing enough to help her build up her confidence, to ensure her that everything would be alright. He had taken her many times to the boundary line of the nearest village, and though it was a huge step for her, they both knew that one of these days she would have to move past that boundary and into the snake pit.

Although Carlisle enjoyed the blissful weeks of his engagement with all his heart, he still felt pressured to complete the task he knew would give them both the freedom they craved. He had to take Esme into town. He had to let her test her control around humans. She would not be fully happy until it happened, and he would not feel adequate until he proved himself worthy by doing it.

Esme wanted to be comfortable around humans, and that she would be. She also wanted a real wedding, and that he would give her.

Save for these slight rough spots in their uncertain future, Carlisle thought things were going remarkably well. He had somehow believed that becoming Esme's lover would be a difficult transition for him, but it was quite the opposite. Nothing seemed more natural than to be with her every moment of the day, to reach out and touch her whenever he craved, to brush his lips against her cheek whenever she smiled. Even grander, Esme seemed to feel the same way about him.

Although it seemed promising, perhaps this was just the honeymoon phase of their blossoming relationship. Carlisle knew better than to get his hopes up that everything would run as smoothly even after they were married. He was expecting some dark times ahead, for Esme especially. As she was still very new to the vampire lifestyle, she would have many trials yet to face in her future. But he would be guiding her through every one of them.

For now, they could enjoy their peace.

Embracing Esme was the first thing Carlisle looked forward to doing when he came home from the hospital. Even before they were a couple, he had always counted on seeing her beautiful face in the foyer to greet him. But now, he could express how truly elated he was to have her waiting for him.

He sailed through the door and dropped everything in the hallway, unwilling to waste any time before seeking her out. His instinct drew her to him like an eager insect to honey, and he found her in the greenhouse on the east wing of the house, pruning the flower shrubs.

She turned immediately when she heard him come inside, and she set her tools down on the tiles so her hands were free to cling to his shoulders.

It was a bit silly how desperate their reunions were after such a short frame of time spent apart. But at the same time, Carlisle couldn't imagine ever coming home to Esme without that reeling sense of urgency in his heart. Every hour spent without her tore another gaping hole in his chest. By the time his shift was through, he was nearly hollow, and in dire need of Esme to fill the empty spaces.

It wasn't his imagination. Every day it became more serious as his needs became more demanding. He feared it was only a matter of time before he would have attached himself to her like some parasite who couldn't survive on his own.

They held each other for a long while, not saying anything, just relishing the fact that they were together again. Carlisle grew restless with the stationary embrace and eventually captured her chin in his hand so he could kiss her forcefully.

Her hands swept gratefully down his sides and around his back, anchoring him to her body as he indulged himself to his heart's content. Birds sang and bees hummed, and the sunlight sparkled around them, but all he cared about was the feeling of Esme's lips under his.

The only thing that stopped him from kissing her was his need to see her lovely face again. Battling the urge to drown her in his venom, he slowly backed away, hands still latched to her waist. She stared up at him with lips as bright as the inside of a watermelon, and the many passions in her eyes were thriving, just like the flowers and vines that surrounded them in this greenhouse.

In fact the whole atmosphere of the room was entirely too sultry for his sanity. He could barely control himself around Esme in his study, much less a jungle-hot, flower-infested glass case. He shifted on his feet and cleared his throat before he asked her what she had been up to while he was gone.

"Just tending to the plants," she informed him with a glimmer in her eye.

Carlisle very much looked forward to the time when she would tend to _him. _

He bent down to place another kiss on the corner of her mouth. "You certainly keep yourself busy around here," he said fondly.

"It takes a lot of work to keep such a large house looking perfect all of the time," she teased.

"It seems rather effortless for you," he assured her, hoping the compliment would earn him another kiss.

Esme grinned and tickled his chin. That would do.

"That's just what I want you to think," she compromised.

He watched her as she continued snipping leaves and stems from various pots beside the window. Every so often she would glance back at him over her shoulder, and it made him deliriously happy. Everything was a giddy game when he was in love. There were no limits to the chain of events that might occur when they were together, no predicting where their harmless flirting might lead.

Unable to stay away from her for too long, Carlisle came up behind Esme while she was engrossed in trimming a tuft of basil leaves. Knowing the strong scent would cling to her fingers for the rest of the day made him even more aroused. If things went his way, many more of his possessions would be smelling like basil by the end of the day.

Hiding his sly smile behind her hair, he peeked over her shoulder and slid both hands over hers while she handled the tiny green plant.

"You're breaking my concentration," she whispered, not a hint of annoyance in her voice.

He tapped his fingers innocently against her wrists and gave a gentle squeeze. "Am I?"

"Mmm."

Carlisle tried not to look too thrilled as Esme's head lolled lazily back against his shoulder. Taking advantage of her distraction, he pushed the tray of potted herbs aside and folded her hands firmly in both of his, holding them against her belly.

"I'm so happy you're home," she suddenly sighed, sounding genuinely relieved. A warm swell of pride filled his chest. Carlisle wondered why so many men he knew complained about having needy or "clingy" wives. So far it seemed rather delightful.

"Likewise," he murmured into her glossy curls. "I waited all day for this."

Her voice became quieter, throatier. "How very nice to know."

Knowing he had reached his limit, Carlisle urgently twisted Esme around in his arms to face him. He pressed his lips to hers for the hundredth time, overwhelmed that she still had the strength to kiss him back. He suckled feverishly until he felt he had drained every last drop of energy she had left.

When he was through, she let her head fall to his chest, panting with exhaustion. In that moment he especially loved that fact that they were all alone in a sweltering hot room with curtains of ivy covering the windows.

Her hand came up, stroked his heart, then fell limply down to her side again. In sweet retaliation, he burrowed his hand in her hair and gently massaged the back of her neck until she whimpered in pleasure.

Somehow he thought that sound would be even more appealing in a dark bedroom.

"How did we ever survive this long without each other?" he asked, baffled.

Esme leaned further into him and shook her head. "I don't know."

Smiling, Carlisle tipped her chin up and gazed affectionately into her eyes. She blinked, smiled back, then stared at his lips.

So he knew he had to kiss her again.

Consumed by the kiss, he swept her easily off the floor and carried her across the room. Laughing lightly as she fought to keep him from letting her go, he gently placed her down on the window ledge and stood back to look down at her where she sat, surrounded by bright magenta flowers. Somehow the scene made her look twice as pretty. With her lacy white blouse and her long hair tucked to one side, he couldn't help thinking she looked like something out of a romantic renaissance portrait.

He stroked her cheek repeatedly with the back of his finger, addicted to her softness. Not many years ago, the idea that he could be so intimate with a woman like Esme would have seemed impossible, not to mention taboo.

"You know," he began slyly, "if our families were still around, they would consider our courtship quite a scandal."

Esme's outburst of giggles was strangely seductive. "True. Edward could hardly be considered a good chaperone. He's barely around when we're together."

Carlisle cast a wary eye to the door, unsure of his son's current whereabouts. "Would it be terrible of me to say I'm grateful for his absence?" he whispered as he kissed Esme softly on the cheek. "I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to behave around you."

She shook her head with a smile of disbelief. "Carlisle, I don't think your behavior is something you need to worry about." She hooked her feet innocently around the backs of his knees and he felt a ticklish tug in his lower belly.

"I think you underestimate the effect you have on me," he admitted with a slight wince before taking a careful step back.

She looked frightened. Brilliant.

He solved this minor setback in the only way he knew how. With another kiss.

He was relying a lot on kisses these days.

"Why is it I feel I can never get enough of this?" he whispered between pecks, not really expecting her to answer.

Esme shrugged and gently caressed his bottom lip with her little finger. "Perhaps you're making up for lost time."

He couldn't help but smile sadly at her clever response, more to the fact that it held more truth in it than he was willing to admit.

"I've been waiting so long to feel this way about someone," he sighed, the memory of a long forgotten ache rising in his chest. "Looking back now, I can't believe how far I've come."

This time it was Esme who lured him in for a kiss. He was beginning to sense when she was about to kiss him. She would get a hazy look in her eyes, and her eyelids would droop slightly, and she would usually part her lips too. He learned to take advantage when he saw her secret signals, intent that he wouldn't miss a single opportunity to taste her when she offered him the chance.

The kiss she gave him was hotter than the sun streaming through the windows all around them. Carlisle had the curious urge to snag a thermometer from his doctor's kit and take Esme's temperature, just to be sure it wasn't his imagination.

It wasn't long before the heat became too much for him. Keeping his sanity in mind, Carlisle reluctantly pulled out of the kiss.

Esme wasn't ready to give him up. "Don't stop..." she begged, her words seeming to come from the back of her throat. Her fingers clawed at his shirt, and her ankles rubbed earnestly against the backs of his knees again.

He panicked, because she looked like a painting, and his conscience was weighing in on him.

"If I don't stop now, I never will," he warned with a whimper.

He went so far as to hide his hands behind his back this time, trying in vain to step away from her appealing trap.

"Ohhh, that sounds wonderful." Her voice was dreamy and full of unspeakable need. She grasped his neck fiercely and pulled him closer. "Kissing forever..."

Instead of enticing him as he thought it would, the notion made him stop and think.

"What _is _a kiss, really?" he asked her, truly curious. "Why do we do it?"

Esme shook her head at him, though her eyes were sparkling with affection. "Oh, Carlisle, don't go playing Socrates now."

But he wasn't satisfied. It was a valid question. What was a kiss?

"What purpose does it serve?" he continued arbitrarily. "It's just... a pleasurable violation of the lips."

Esme stared at him in silence for a moment, then, with a sly smile, she ever so softly repeated the word that had intrigued her. "Violation?"

Her eyes dipped to his mouth, dark with renewed thirst. As usual, his attempts to dissuade her seemed to have the opposite effect.

_Oh, well. _

She attacked him once again, and he decided he was incapable of fighting her. He was a weak man. Very weak. When Esme wanted something, he had to give it to her, even if he had to endure the risks.

The fragrance of the flowers became almost oppressive as he kissed Esme like the desperate vampire he was. He was always on the edge of something these days, but now he felt it coming for him full force, like a squall on the prairie. Those dark desires he always tried to tame were eating away at him from the inside. All those little things he needed to share with her _**– **_those exciting, wild, primal things about him _**– **_were well prepared to explode.

But somehow, he couldn't think of those things as vulgar. Somehow, he thought they were beautiful. And somehow, he believed Esme would think they were beautiful, too.

Like a drunken man drowning in his goblet of wine, Carlisle could feel himself getting carried away in the kiss, but he could no longer control how far he was falling.

He noticed his feet were wet. They had knocked over a watering can.

He also noticed the soft _rip _of thin lace, and the loose white threads that were looped around his fingers as he tried to pull his hand away from Esme's shoulder.

And the last thing he noticed was how masochistic he felt when he realized he had torn a hole in a woman's blouse.

He could have kicked himself, but oddly enough that didn't seem at all appropriate. For one thing, he wasn't feeling nearly as guilty as he should have. And besides that, Esme didn't even seem to care.

Only one concept was clear in his head at that moment: the _want. _

He wanted to do more to her than just kiss her. He wanted to tear through the rest of that lace until there was nothing left. Press her deep into the soil where those flowers grew and have his way with her. He wanted to see her hair spiraling out in the dirt like spilled honey. He wanted to see her skirt flutter back, revealing her shapely white legs. He wanted to coat her quivering throat in sturdy kisses, and do something scandalous and heroic to her...

It all quickly became too much for him. The humid air, the scalding sun piercing his back, the flustered pink flowers, the strong scents of earth and summer rain. In his fragile state, he could only take so much of it all before he lost himself entirely.

He knew it. This greenhouse was breeding ground for disaster.

It was then when Carlisle decided to stop kissing Esme. For good. He didn't know how long the commitment would last, but he was willing to try until they had at least set a date for the wedding. He had come too close to letting his control slip through his fingers. He wasn't _that man,_ and he certainly didn't want Esme to think she had agreed to make _that man _her husband.

For the final time, he forced himself to back away from her. She made a frustrated noise when their lips parted, her hands still tugging insistently at his shirt.

"I think that is enough for now," said Carlisle. He was careful to keep his words gentle, but he could still see the hurt in her eyes.

"I don't want to stop," she said with a pout.

"Oh, I don't either, Esme." He shook his head, unable to hide the inflections of longing in his voice. "Not really."

"Then why...?"

He gently cupped her hands with his, and slipped them off his hips. "I think you know why."

And the conversation ended there.

It was not a painful parting, but rather an understood distance they decided must be set between them. Walking hand in hand or sitting close together was one thing, but kissing for minutes straight with no breaks for breath was quite another. Carlisle simply had to find a balance. For a while, Esme supported his efforts.

But he could sense her growing urgency as the days grew longer and the heat of summer took its toll on her. The days seemed to blend together now, and the firm line he had once drawn between his time at the hospital and his time at home was washing away. Esme was always on his mind, whether he was all alone or right beside her.

Even on his way home from the hospital, when he should have been concentrating on the road ahead of him, he kept seeing visions of Esme in various places throughout their house, in various states of undress...

He squinted ahead through the windshield and tried to focus, but he was still almost astonished at the shadowy figure that suddenly appeared on the side of the road. Carlisle pulled over abruptly and shifted gears, opening his car door to see Edward standing there on the gravel with his hands on his hips.

He ran a hand through his hair as usual and cocked his head. "Can we talk now?"

Carlisle sighed and stepped out of his car. "Goodness, Edward."

He felt a light slap on the back of his shoulder. "We both know I'll never be able to get you alone once you see Esme again."

_That was true._

Edward smirked. "I'll make it quick, I promise."

Carlisle clasped his hands together and gave his son his undivided attention.

"Tonight," Edward began, pointing with one no-nonsense finger in the direction of their house. "You're going to tell Esme that she is ready."

It would have been foolish for Carlisle to ask what for. He knew very well what Edward was implying. They'd been skirting around the subject for weeks.

"I can't be dishonest with her, son."

"But you wouldn't be dishonest." Edward shook his head, frustrated. "You believe she's capable. I know you do."

"Once in a while, I—"

Edward's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up, urging Carlisle to continue.

"I just don't know if _she _believes she's ready yet."

Edward laughed in a completely gentle and non-judgmental way. "Carlisle, if _you _believe she's ready, she'll believe it too. It's that easy."

Carlisle couldn't help but smile inwardly at this. Since he'd proposed to her, he was beginning to notice how true it was. Esme rarely saw things as impossible when he had faith in her. It was the most beautiful part of their relationship.

Carlisle bit his lip as he glanced around at the tall dark trees. He knew how fervently Esme wished to be free of this forest fenced prison. She would want to visit places she'd never seen before, have an outing that was more than just a "hunt." He wanted to give her a new experience, but she was going to need some courage to accept his invitation.

"Very well. I'll ask her," he whispered.

Edward's eyes lit up. "We'll all go together," he said eagerly, "as a family."

Carlisle's heart swelled with the last three words. Suddenly, taking Esme into town to test her control around humans didn't seem so daunting.

In fact, he was looking forward to it.

******-}0{-**

He still spent as much time as possible with her when they were home together.

Laying outside in the grass under their willow tree was his favorite thing to do with her. For now.

"We should run to the nearest church right now," she proposed. She was always saying things like that these days. This time she sounded particularly serious.

"You're not ready yet, love," he told her, rising from his resting place in her lap. Then hoping to ease her pain, he added gently, "I wish we could, but you need more time. More exposure..."

Yes, exposure... in more ways than one.

He smiled vaguely at his distracted thoughts, as his eyes took in her stretched out legs in the grass. Her pouting lips turned up with laughter as he brushed his fingers teasingly over her bare toes. Taking one irresistible little foot in his hand, he raised it up to his lips and kissed it.

Her light gasp surprised him. It also broke his heart.

Deep down he wished he could kiss her on the lips again, but he knew very well where that would lead him. If he could hold out just a little bit longer, he knew the rewards would be great. But his patience was wearing thin.

She just looked so...ravishing. Sprawled out on the grass in that soft pink dress, her legs more perfect than a ballerina's.

"Why won't you kiss me?" she asked him, her voice barely more than a breath.

He barely deserved to be touching her like this, let alone kissing her. But the fact that Esme _wanted_ his kiss made it that much harder to restrain himself.

"I'm afraid," Carlisle admitted, studying the sole of her foot to avoid her eyes.

Esme's bejeweled skin sparkled in the sun as she straightened up and leaned toward him. "Of what?"

He took a deep breath and looked straight into her eyes. "My...instincts." He could practically feel his skin heating up at the thought of what those instincts might lead him to do if he let them.

"_I'm_ not afraid," she said solidly. Her eyes brightened, and her skin glistened, and there was hunger in her expression. This bolder, more confident Esme was dangerously appealing.

"Oh, Esme, please do not tempt me," he begged, bowing his face to stare at the ground. "I don't want to ruin what we have."

"How could you ruin it?" she asked, shaking her head from side to side so her curls fell over her shoulders. Her fingers caressed his chin until he had no choice but to look at her. "All you could do is make it more wonderful..."

The way she'd said it, and what she had said, made the muscles in his thighs tighten and his heart shudder inside his chest. "Oh, I want to, Esme. I long for nothing else."

Her eyes were turbulent with expectation and desire. He was convinced that nothing he could say would sway her now. With shockingly strong fingers, she gripped his collar and declared in a sharp whisper, "I don't want to wait any longer."

A hot tremble coursed through him, straight into his lap. Arousal bloomed like a familiar flower in the pit of his stomach, and everything below his belt became hard as steel.

"Neither do I." His voice was so hoarse he doubted she could understand him.

"Then..." Her voice trailed off on a breeze as she lifted herself up, and her eyes were suddenly level with his. He felt all of the power shift to her as she set her fingers on the buttons of his shirt. She did not move to undo them just yet, but simply the _idea _that she was thinking of it made him almost numb with excitement.

Her naked knees pushed into the grass as her pale pink skirt fluttered around them, inviting him to explore what hid beneath. So he accepted the unspoken invitation.

"Here?" he whispered, twisting the hem of her dress with his middle finger.

She nodded, and he let his hand slide under the fabric. Warm, smooth skin greeted him. He sighed. "I love you." His dark, sandpaper voice had changed into something soft and timid. "Do you feel my love for you, Esme?"

Her hips twisted slowly over his lap, and a sweet panic took him over as he felt her soft body brush the front of his pants.

"Yes..." she confirmed in a shaky whimper.

Something strange happened at that moment, something he'd never expected. He could feel himself beginning to move against her, just barely, in a raw, uncoordinated kind of rhythm that seemed to control him more than he controlled it. It was a sublime sensation, almost delicate, but it brought with it the steady promise of building aggression. The motion was so subtle that he couldn't be sure it was even happening, but one thing he knew for certain was that Esme could feel it too.

Her eyes opened wide for him, full of panic and wonder, glassy with half-forgotten fears. He knew he should stop immediately, but he just couldn't bear to lose this feeling. He knew she was not ready for this, even though she had asked for it. He knew _he _was not ready for this, even though his instincts seemed to think otherwise.

But Esme was the first to say it out loud.

"We...can't?"

The sizzle of excitement in the air slowly evaporated. Steel softened to lead, and Carlisle felt that he could breathe again.

Disappointment far outweighed his relief that they had been able to stop themselves before it was too late. "God must join us. Not I," he said, letting her slide off his lap and into the grass.

Feeling oddly like a coward, he curled up against the tree trunk, one hand buried in his hair. He chanced a glance at Esme, and was torn apart by the forlorn expression on her face.

"Come here." He reached out to her and she promptly crawled into his open arms. He burrowed his nose in her soft hair and attempted to explain himself. "To say that I cannot tame my desires would be a poor excuse. You are worth too much to me, Esme. Do you understand?"

He felt her nod, but other than that, she was as still as she was silent. It bothered him a little.

"Our bond cannot be sacred unless we are first blessed as husband and wife before the eyes of God," he elaborated, hoping for some hint that she understood and endorsed his decision.

She still said nothing, and at that point he knew she must have been thinking, which made him even more curious. He allowed her another minute to mull over his words, but just as he was about to ask her what was on her mind, she answered him with an unexpected question.

"You have never known another woman... have you?"

Knowing where this conversation would venture if he chose to answer her, Carlisle began by offering Esme the barest truth. "I have not."

He could practically feel the relief radiating from her body as she relaxed against him. But to leave her with this weak response would be like leaving her in the dark. It was only a half-truth as far as he was concerned. Best to confess the rest _before_ the night of his wedding...

"But this is a poor reckoning of my behavior, Esme," he continued bravely. "I cannot bear dishonesty before your face. I have been tempted many times. Simply refusing to act on those desires is the only credit I am due."

Esme's hand shifted on his knee as she whispered, "I never expected you to be without flaw, Carlisle." Her words somehow comforted him, though he thought they may have been at least partially untrue.

"Two and half centuries is no possible conquest for any man," he defended, feeling somewhat beside himself.

But Esme's passion convinced him otherwise. "Of course not," she said, a thrilling fierceness to her words. She reached up for his face with a reassuring hand and stared into his eyes just the same as she always had.

"It is a delicate question what is pure, what is not," he mused, recalling how many pages of his journals reflected on that very question.

Esme bit her lip. "Do you think... Do you think I am pure?"

_Purer than doves, my love, _he wanted to say. But he was more thoughtful than that.

"In no way do I consider myself any more or less tainted than you, Esme," he reasoned, utterly honest. "Your purity lies within your heart, and that is the only place I seek to mark." He leaned in close and touched his nose to hers, struck dumb at the taste of her breath against his lips. He was almost lured into another spontaneous kiss, but then she was speaking.

"When you say you knew temptation..."

His heart became taut and his eyes grew sullen. "I mean that I was tempted like any other man."

It hurt Carlisle to say those words, _like any other man. _He didn't want to be _any other man _to Esme. He wanted to be exceptional, in every way, shape, and form. But the truth was, he had poor marks of his own to confess.

"Is there something I should know about, is what I am asking," she murmured, her eyes intense.

As a soon-to-be married man, Carlisle felt he owed Esme the story in its entirety, no matter how much shame it brought him.

"I was still in Volterra at the time..." And he recounted the dreaded story of Marietta, the woman he had always pretended never existed. She was not in any of his journal entries, or any of his thoughts. In fact he had not thought once about her in over a decade since he'd met Esme...

But now Esme needed to know about Marietta. Now he needed to remind himself that she was real, and as much as he despised his albeit brief involvement with her, that experience was a part of him and had somehow shaped his behavior for ages to come.

So he allowed himself to remember the temptress with her long raven hair and burning almond eyes. The way she had invited him with every blink of her eyelashes, the way she had whispered unmentionable offers to him in flowing Italian every night. The way he had tried to avoid her at all costs until that one fateful night.

When he neared the end of his story, he stared at Esme with a calmness in his eyes and a small amount of relief in his heart.

"She touched me," he remembered, holding Esme's much warmer and much lovelier hand against his chest. "Right here. That was all. I looked into her eyes, just as I am looking into yours...and I knew that I would have an eternity's worth of regret ahead of me if I were to surrender to her that night."

Esme still looked at him like he was a hero. Oddly enough, he felt like one.

"I'd thought I was destroying myself by clinging to my faith, but in the end it was my faith that stopped me from committing the most grievous sin of all."

Esme shook her head in amazement. "How did you tell her you had changed your mind?"

Carlisle almost chuckled. "I said nothing. She must have seen it in my eyes, that I did not truly want what she offered me. One cannot justify the reasoning of his heart. So I simply left her." That was the part he had always been proud of.

Esme's expression right then made the entire story worth telling. "She must have been—"

"Angry? Yes, naturally. The woman had never been refused by another man before, so I'd imagine she has still not forgiven me."

As Esme laughed he could not help but see her as the sunny-faced, innocent farm girl he had met that stormy night in Ohio. Her face flashed before his eyes in freckled, blushing beauty. Beneath her flawless, matured exterior, he knew Esme would remain the same wistful young girl forever.

It was that wistful young girl he'd fallen in love with.

"Oh, Esme. Even then, there was no doubt in my mind that I had made the right decision," he said as he dragged her fingers lightly across his throat. "And now I am only more grateful that I did."

She stared up and down his face, as if weighing the sincerity in his words. "Still, perhaps this woman would have...known what she was doing...a little better than I—"

The horror of what she was saying hit Carlisle squarely in the soul. "Esme, I do not want a woman who _knows_. I want a woman who _loves_." His voice was rough and passionate as he curled his hand around her cheek. "Marietta did not love me. She was looking for a conquest. She pursued me for selfish reasons. I intrigued her because I was an anomaly, but in the end I would have been just another number. She did not truly care for me; she was a pretender in every way. I saw nothing in her eyes that could rival what I see in yours."

On cue, Esme's gaze swirled like fire. "What do you see in my eyes?"

Words were insufficient to describe it, but he tried his hardest nonetheless. "Love. Warmth. An unconquerable passion which I long to one day know better..."

The brief image of her laying nude in a heap of blue silk sheets scarred his mind.

"We can make that 'one day' very soon," she sighed into his ear. And it felt like a promise.

"You're ready to go out into the world, Esme," Carlisle declared, surer than he had ever been before. How could such a woman fail in the face of her fears? He just couldn't fathom it. Remembering his conversation with Edward, Carlisle asked her in earnest, "Will you let me take you into town? Tonight?"

She gaped at him in surprise. "Tonight?"

"Edward will come with us. We'll visit quiet, less populated places to start out. The museum, the library." He caged her hands between his and stared into her eyes. "I know that you are strong enough for this, Esme. Can you please trust me?"

He already had his answer, before she'd even said the words.

"I do. I trust you."

"Then...?"

"We'll go tonight."

* * *

**To the several readers who asked to see the conversation in which Carlisle decides to abstain from excessive kissing, I hope you enjoyed it. To everyone else, I hope you liked the chapter and I hope you'll forgive me for the wait!**


	38. Sealing the Wounds

**Sealing the Wounds**

_Chapter 59 from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

He never quite figured out why she looked so beautiful when she was nervous.

Maybe it had something to do with the way she held herself, still inhumanly graceful in her cautiousness. She set one foot in front of the other, as if she were balancing on an invisible beam as she walked along her path. Her eyes darted from here to there, taking in every detail of her surroundings, measuring and calculating everything to be sure she was still safe.

All he wanted to do was comfort her, to show her that nothing would harm her and everything would be fine. The most he could do was drape an arm around her and guide her wherever she walked. She did not have to be alone when she walked in this world. Now it was in his power to walk with her.

"You're doing wonderfully so far, darling," he whispered to her in the dark as they came closer to the familiar buildings in the town. One could tell just from looking at Esme's face that she was seeing those buildings for the first time. Carlisle tried to see them through her eyes, the grandeur of a new scene unfolding before her in the darkness. He saw those buildings through the eyes of an appreciating artist and architect, and they never looked more beautiful to him.

She became tense as they started walking on the road, but he held her tighter and encouraged her to keep moving forward at a steady pace. Edward, however, was not so willing to be slow and steady. "The library is just around this corner, Esme. Follow me!"

Carlisle chided his son through his thoughts for being impatient, though he knew Edward's intentions were completely innocent. When Esme tried to lunge ahead, Carlisle gripped her around the waist and pulled her back against him. "Take your time. He'll wait for us."

He suppressed a small smile, knowing Edward had no other choice.

Esme seemed less reluctant to slow down than he'd expected. She let him hold her hand and took small steps up the sidewalk toward the edge of the towering buildings. Carlisle watched her fascinated expressions, vicariously soaking in her private wonder over things she had not seen with her vampire eyes. Her world had been limited to art and nature, a simple yet lavish existence that covered a few miles of grass, lake, and forest. For nearly a year, she witnessed no evidence of civilization. She had no contact with the human race beyond the one she had attacked in the woods, and no sense of community with anyone other than her own two male companions.

It wasn't until Esme stood on the street, staring up at the public library as if it were the Tower of Babel that Carlisle realized how significant this experience really was for her.

"Can we go inside the library?" she asked him, her eyes painfully bright. She may as well have been asking him to climb the very stairs to heaven. He couldn't help but chuckle.

"Of course we're going inside," Edward answered for him.

Carlisle found it amusing how Edward had planned a secret back entrance solely for the purpose of making Esme feel more adventurous. They stuffed themselves into the cramp little staircase in the back hall of the library, shuffling awkwardly on their way up to the third floor. It was gloriously entertaining to watch Esme's expression change as soon as she reached the top of those stairs.

"Isn't it great?" Edward confirmed her thoughts, gesturing over the grand balcony to the floor far below.

Esme nodded breathlessly as her eyes wandered over the large windows and endless walls of books. She looked as if she could devour the entire room with just her eyes. Carlisle's smile widened.

He kept firm hold of her hand as she darted excitedly over to the books. She glided through the aisles with her free hand outstretched, feeling the spines of books as she went along. She peeked between the shelves and around corners as if she were exploring a dark Egyptian tomb. "This is amazing."

He smiled in secret, knowing they both found it amazing for different reasons.

She started to move more quickly when she found evidence of human presence. Around the corner was a table where humans would sit down and read or study together. In the center of the table was an oil lamp, which beckoned her fingers to reach out and touch it.

"It's almost like I had forgotten that humans still existed out here somewhere," she said. "The world seems so much more _real _to me now."

Carlisle's heart ached with familiarity, comparing her experience to his own when he rejoined the world. "It does make you feel more complete, doesn't it?" He captured her hand in his and pulled it away from the lamp.

Her head nestled against his neck in contentment. "All I need is you to feel complete, Carlisle."

In that moment he wanted nothing more than to sweep her off the ground and carry her the rest of the way through the library.

Edward cut in before Carlisle could consider his change of plans. "Carlisle, you have to show Esme these paintings."

Esme's head collided with Carlisle's chin in her excitement to see the paintings Edward had mentioned. It was a challenge for Carlisle to keep hold of her hand this time. She was in danger of crumbling down walls when it came to seeing art.

When she finally stood in front of the four paintings, Esme managed to break away from Carlisle to take a closer look at the canvas with the white horse. He almost whimpered at the loss of contact, but a comforting stare from Edward calmed him down enough to give her some space. He could last a few seconds without holding her.

But damn, it was harder than he thought.

Edward stared at Esme while she stared at the painting, and as his smile grew, Carlisle recognized that whatever she was thinking of must have instigated that smile on his son's face. It tempted Carlisle endlessly to know what went on inside her mind, too. Feeling left out, Carlisle quickly made his way back over to his fiancée and wrapped his arms around her from behind. "I'd love to take you to the museum, Esme." Hoping he could tempt her with descriptions of the place, he murmured into her ear, "Imagine all the art we could see together. There are paintings covering every wall, and countless sculptures in every room..."

It was instant inspiration. "Can we go there next?"

Carlisle voiced his concern through his thoughts, looking to Edward for confirmation. _It's a long walk there, Edward. Can she handle it?_

Edward shrugged cheerfully. "She's done fine so far. I'll be able to tell if there's someone within at least ten blocks of us." He quickly looked out the window to see if the coast was clear. "It's up to you."

With such a weighty decision resting on his shoulders, Carlisle's judgment was impaired by Esme's imploring eyes.

"Yes, we can go there tonight."

He was no better than a parent who spoiled his child.

Esme squealed in delight and made a dash for the stairs. Her fascination with the library was replaced by a ravishing hunger for more mysterious territory. Although he was frustrated by her breaking away from him yet again, her enthusiasm tickled him.

"Wait for us," he gently admonished her with a laugh as he finally caught up with her at the door.

Edward sniggered. "You looked like you were about to break this door down."

"I was not," Esme defended hotly.

One sour exchange seemed to have thrown her concentration off. Carlisle tried to keep her steady as they walked through the streets, but he could feel a distinct shift in her balance, a growing tension in her gait.

"You two didn't tell me the museum was all the way on the other side of town."

Carlisle felt like cowering when he heard the haunting bite of disappointment in her voice. The last thing he wanted was for this night not to live up to her expectations.

Apparently Edward wasn't as concerned about that. He whipped his head around in mild annoyance. "Enjoying the exercise?"

Carlisle attempted to soothe the situation by rubbing Esme's shoulders. Her breathing slowed, but only slightly. "Are we close?" she asked, a strain in her voice.

"Hold back for a few minutes. I think there may be someone..." Edward's uncertainty was unnerving.

Carlisle couldn't help the tone of fear that shuddered in his voice as he hissed his son's name in the dark. "Edward?"

He met Edward's eyes in a frightening flash, knowing there was something more serious just around the corner. "They're closer than I thought. Let's just get out of here."

Carlisle was seconds away from hoisting Esme over his shoulder when she started to lunge in the opposite direction. The scent of blood was faint for him, but it was sweet enough to drive her into a frenzy.

When he first saw that cloud of confusion cover her lovely eyes, he felt like he could have fallen to his knees and sobbed. Had he been such a fool, thinking she would make it through the night without a hitch on her first time? Had his expectations of her been too great?

His heart began to sink fast. No matter how loudly he called her name or how hard he tugged on her arms, she would not respond to him.

Strength did not come back to him immediately. He had to pray, and breathe deeply, and struggle to regain his power. Edward made valiant efforts to help him, but it was not without argument that they were able to work together to bring Esme back to a safe place.

She was still incredibly strong, but she did not fight their hold as harshly as she had the last time they had to restrain her. Carlisle could feel those tiny weaknesses now as she struggled. The thrashing of her arms was less powerful, the growls that formed in her throat were softer, and her fingers did not claw at him like they did before. He could almost see those concealed emotions in her gaze when she looked at him. There was a desperation there, a desperation to come back to the world.

As always, it broke his heart to see Esme so afraid of herself. But with every step they took farther away from town, she came closer to consciousness. He wished he could tell her how brave she was, how proud he was of her for trying even when everything seemed hopeless. But he knew she wouldn't understand. As long as she considered her efforts a failure, she would not listen to him when he praised her for what little progress she had made.

"Stay with us, Esme!" Edward said frantically as he worked to pull Esme up the hill. She still resisted, but her strength was surely waning as she lost track of the scents behind them.

Carlisle marveled at his son's voice, at how confident Edward sounded, even in his urgency. Carlisle wished he could say _something _to Esme, too, but his voice died before it even left his lips. He was so sure she wouldn't even hear him.

A bitter taste filled his mouth as he felt Esme's skin break beneath his nails. The last time he and Edward had dragged her away from a bleeding human, she hadn't been injured at all. Her skin was still hard as diamonds back then. The softening of her skin was one downfall of her maturation as a vampire. Carlisle hated that he could do nothing about the scratches he and Edward left on her arms and shoulders and neck. It was a necessary sacrifice until they at least reached the car.

To their surprise, Esme came to her senses much sooner than they'd expected.

At the top of the hill, she suddenly collapsed in their arms, and for an irrational second, Carlisle worried that she had actually died. He berated himself mentally for such a foolish thought, but took comfort in knowing it was natural to be concerned for the love of his life.

He knelt beside her in the grass, holding her hand tightly as he waited for any sign that she was alright. Just as he was beginning to panic, her pupils shrank to their normal size. She blinked once and sucked in a deep, clean breath, realizing the air was clear around her.

"What happened?" she cried, staring in horror down at her arm. Carlisle snatched her fingers before she could touch her wounded skin.

"There was...a struggle." He didn't know how else to explain it. He trusted she was smart enough to figure out the truth, but he hated that she still looked so frightened. She even jumped when Edward started the car.

"Try not to move too much, Esme," Carlisle said, trying desperately to regain some authority over the situation. "You'll be alright."

He lifted her off the ground, hoping she would let him carry her into the car, but she seemed able enough to walk on her own. The dark interior of the car was more welcoming than ever as he gave her a gentle push inside, while being mindful of her wounded flesh.

Once they were stuffed safely inside the back seat, Carlisle slammed the door shut behind them. Whimpering more from fear and uncertainty than pain, Esme fell into him, as if unable to support herself on her own. Carlisle immediately covered her with a protective arm and met his son's eyes in the rear view mirror.

_Go as quickly as you can, Edward. Risk any damage to the car, if you must. _

Edward's eyes lit up at his father's permission to break the speed limits. Carlisle wondered if the tires left trails of fire behind them as Edward drove. He only prayed that no one else would be driving this late at night.

Carlisle ran his fingers repeatedly through Esme's hair, whispering strings of reassurances all the way home. When Edward finally parked the car outside their house, Carlisle was surprised to see Esme looking much more balanced when she sat up.

"Are you hurting very much, Esme?" Edward asked before she even got out of the car. In a most uncharacteristic gesture, he carelessly dropped the ignition key onto the ground. Carlisle couldn't help but be mildly pleased at how concerned he was.

"She'll be alright, Edward," he assured his son, gleaning confidence from another man's worry. Without another word, Carlisle covered Esme's shoulders with his hands and began to steer her in the direction of the house.

Titillating masculine excitement stirred in his chest as he guided his helpless fiancée into his study. It reminded him a little of being back in the hospital; that feeling of restlessness that preceded a large surgery. In the face of mounting preparations, he was filled with a fluttery eagerness to immediately fix what was broken.

The first thing he did was turn on the lamp. A candle would have been nice, but that would have wasted time. Esme was frightened, and she was waiting for him to heal her.

He gently encouraged her to stand under the beam of warm lamplight as he studied her damaged skin. First he looked over her arm – soft, snow white and slender – covered in tiny nicks and scratches where her venom was pooling like iridescent purple paint. As he twisted her arm slowly around, his stomach churned when he saw the gashes on the even more delicate skin underneath. She shivered slightly when he ran his fingers over the scrapes.

"You're fine, darling," he whispered once, and tucked her hand inside of his own.

Before he took her outside, he reached into his desk drawer for his stethoscope. For some reason he felt the need to smuggle it out, as if he were stealing something that did not belong to him. It was not inappropriate for Esme to see, though he felt sheepish at the prospect of her recognizing it. He both dreaded and longed for the moment when her clever eyes would catch the sight of that stethoscope, half-hidden in his hand.

He knew she would be bound to notice it the moment he lifted her to sit upon the balustrade. She twitched when she felt it on her hip, and he defended himself by putting it on properly. The weight of the instrument fell with a comfortable thump around his neck. Like a soldier's best armor, it offered him a kind of protection and made him feel more powerful.

Esme's eyes glanced from his face to the stethoscope in confusion, but the smallest smile on her lips convinced him that she was just as fond of it as he was.

"For sentimental reasons," he explained, causing her smile to spread.

In removing his tie and unbuttoning his sweater vest, he hoped that his efforts were sage. Esme watched his hands intently, but he never took his eyes off her face. He saw the way her eyes sparkled dimly when he pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. The night air was suddenly stifling, and he needed to free as much skin as possible to cool down the fire inside of him.

It didn't help at first. Esme looked up at him like the willing patient he had always fantasized her to be, the faint light from the lamp inside his study making her glow like a mirage. The raised welts on her skin were the only imperfection that distracted him. Clinical focus stripped him of his fantasies for a short while as he concentrated on her injured arms.

"Did I do this?" she suddenly asked, clearly worried for his answer.

"No," he said at once. He grazed his thumb over a long gash on her elbow as he spoke. "You resisted us when we tried to pull you back... It was unavoidable."

He knew deep down she would doubt his words, but he could only hope that his voice and touch could prove to her that he spoke the truth. He did not believe she was at fault for anything that had happened. But she certainly did, and she took it upon herself to sit before him in guilt-ridden tension while staring hopelessly at his face.

He could take it no more. Raising his eyes to hers, he knew looked just as guilty as she felt. "I'm sorry," he murmured. The pressure of his fingers lifted on her arm, and he just wanted to stoop down and kiss her all over her face.

She shook her head, politely refusing his apology. "You were only protecting me."

The urge to kiss her was replaced by an urge to comfort her with words, but he was at a loss for what to say. The situation was too delicate to risk handling when she was in such a state. There was work yet to be done.

"They burn," she reminded him with a shaky voice, her arm trembling as she looked down at the garish cuts and scrapes.

A quiet sense of empowerment came over Carlisle as he remembered his intentions. "Not for long."

Taking her slender arm in his hand, he lifted her sweet skin to his mouth and traced one jagged cut with his tongue. There was no feeling more satisfying than knowing he was taking pain away from Esme's body. The slick tickling sensation on the tip of his tongue as his venom mixed with hers made it even more pleasurable. Pride swelled inside of him as he released her newly healed arm, and she gaped at the flawless spot of skin.

"That's amazing," she said breathlessly.

He smiled at her. "Your own venom would have done the job just as well, but waiting out several hours of natural healing isn't very pleasant. Since it was my venom that created you, I have the power to seal your wounds instantaneously."

The pure wonder in Esme's eyes more closely resembled worship in that moment. He could have sworn by the way she lifted her shoulder, she had intended for her sleeve to drop off to the side. With her enchanting wiles, she had him wrapped around her little finger. Luckily for Esme, Carlisle didn't mind being her victim if it meant he could play the healer.

"Thank goodness we were already engaged when this happened, or else I might have burst," she sighed. Her body trembled as his tongue danced against the underside of her jaw, and he moaned happily in response. If he didn't keep himself in check, he was likely to start chewing on her poor neck at any moment. He couldn't bear to continue with just the tip of his tongue when his lips had so much more to offer. As an outlet for his passion, he indulged himself in slyly kissing her neck.

His ear tingled under her soft breath as she whispered, "But then I wonder, would you have offered me this same 'treatment' had I not been your fiancée?"

He pulled away so he could stare at her, so she could see the fire of sincerity in his eyes. "Esme, I would have offered you this treatment when you were still a homely human girl."

She gasped as if in shock. "Don't say things like that!" But he could feel her ankles softly digging into the backs of his knees as she said it.

He buried his face back into the side of her neck to hide his smile as he murmured, "It is the truth." Before he could kiss her again, he felt her small hands tugging gently at his hair. He lifted his head to look at her, stunned by her beauty and utter openness.

"All my wounds are gone, Carlisle."

Her words invigorated him all the more because he knew they were untrue. "I've not finished healing you quite yet," he said with conviction. The rest of her wounds, they both knew, were not visible to the naked eye. But they still ached for his attention, and he had promised to give everything of himself to help heal them.

She surrendered to his touch, allowing his hands to roam her body and his lips to bathe her skin. She was right about one thing. The wounds on her skin had all since disappeared... But he still licked away at her as if she were coated in honey.

So lost in his trance, Carlisle took a few seconds to realize that his hand had gone far off its intended course. Three fingers floated past Esme's neckline, and came into brief contact with the edge of her breast. He felt the strangest combination of feelings then – a surge of hatred for those three fingers for their audacity to violate her without her permission, but also an enthralling bravado in the hot pit of his stomach for taking initiative to explore past that unspoken boundary.

He was so overwhelmed by the mishap, that the touch itself was forgotten. Esme's reaction was now his only concern.

"Esme..." he cooed her name, his voice sweetened by desire. He waited for her admonishment, but it never came. Either she had never felt his deviant touch, or she had forgiven him the instant it happened.

It didn't matter. As he felt her weakening under his ministrations, he could not help but take advantage of the power she had given him. His fingers traced the smooth skin of her arm in awe, admiring his work of sealing her wounds. No evidence remained of her struggle, and that was how he would keep it.

He began to see stars dance before his eyes as he let his touch roam the curves and corners of her arms and shoulders. It was hard to believe there were so many places on her body he had yet to touch, and as he stared at her in the dusky blue light, all of those places seemed twice as tempting. One of her legs was fully exposed up to the middle of her thigh, and his eyes could not look away from it. His fingers continued swirling along her arms, but in his heated mind, he imagined he was really touching that leg. To make matters worse, it was her right leg – the leg she had broken as a human.

Though he sometimes fancied a permanent crookedness to her right leg, at this moment it looked nothing less than perfectly straight in his eyes. Her thigh looked slightly wider, pressed against the stone wall where she sat, but her knee looked even smaller than usual, round and stiff as it merged into her graceful calf. Then there was the plump spot of her ankle, and the dainty curve of her foot, her toes curled to a point on the very end. He licked his lips.

What he wouldn't give to have that leg wrapped fiercely around his waist. He imagined how her ankles would feel digging into his _back _instead of the backs of his knees. He nearly lost himself when he thought of how her soft thighs would cradle his firm hips as he pressed into her...

As he leaned over her in his fantasy, Esme suddenly fell to the arms of gravity. Carlisle caught his breath in alarm as he nearly lost his grip on her. Her breathing matched his, hard and shaky, as she stared into his darkening eyes.

Regaining his composure, he straightened up and summoned his breathing to slow. His hand covered the growing flames in his abdomen, protecting them from Esme's gaze, which he feared would fan them to an unbearable heat.

"The pain is gone now," she said, touching the spots on her neck where he had just kissed her.

He bent one finger and followed the line of her touch. "Good," he whispered.

"If it happens again..."

He firmly interrupted her. "It won't."

"But if it does, I want _this _again." She leaned into the wind and closed her eyes, wrapped in the arms of some unseen daydream. The splendor of her contentment and beauty captured Carlisle's heart. From the look on her face as she said this, he supposed he had done his job well.

"You don't need to be injured for _this_ to happen again," he promised, his voice rough in a way that could no longer be helped. He would only ever want Esme to hear his voice this way. If anyone else, even Edward were to hear him speaking this way, Carlisle decided he would have to bury himself alive.

The flames inside of him rose to his chest, engulfing his fragile heart. He tried to steady himself, pressing one hand against Esme's hip. Her dress rustled coyly at his fingers' intrusion, and it awakened him to the danger of their closeness. So he backed away from her.

But he could still see the raging _want _in her amber eyes. He could still see the way her skin glistened in the soft lights, still moist from his excessive licking. She could have been standing out in the rain, and he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Her lips parted, lovely and lush, but she said nothing. Instead she spoke with one extended hand, trailing her warm fingers up the side of his cheek. One day those warm fingers would journey to places they had never dreamed of before. One day, Esme would touch him _everywhere_.

"How I want you..." The words spilled from his lips, and before he could remind her of his promised abstinence, she captured him in her arms and kissed him passionately.

Her kiss was unexpected, but most certainly not unwelcome. What was more, he did not feel guilty to receive such a kiss before he'd made her his wife, as he worried he would. Perhaps kisses were necessary to purge the passion that plagued him from time to time. Whatever the case, wounded pride had never felt so good.

He grasped her hand as her lips released him, and he watched her eyes lower, mysteriously withdrawn. After a long, tense minute of watching her emotions surge over in silence, Carlisle welcomed Esme's arms as she reached up to him in a trembling embrace.

He wondered desperately what she was thinking of until she finally whispered her first hint, "It turns my stomach to knots."

He flinched. "What does?"

Her fingers clutched his shoulders. "What happened back there..."

"Do not dwell on it," he told her as he pulled her closer. "It is over now." If there was one thing Esme still needed to learn, it was to put the past behind her.

"I think it was more my anger that caused it than anything else," she began to explain, sounding rueful. "I was so desperate to prove to you and Edward that I could handle myself. When Edward said we needed to leave before I'd even had a chance, I became frustrated and I lost my composure."

Carlisle nodded in understanding, acknowledging her legitimate regret. "You will have your chance, Esme. But in the meantime, we do need to take all the precautions we see fit. Edward was only judging the situation based on what he thought you would be able to handle."

She sighed heavily and let her hands fall to her sides. "I know that. And I am so sorry I reacted that way. But I'm afraid I'll never be able to control my reactions. There are times when I want to be so...violent." She hissed the word under her breath as if it were blasphemy.

Carlisle had to smile a little at her insecurity. "That is completely natural for a vampire of your age, Esme."

"But shouldn't all of that have changed by now? I'm hardly a newborn anymore, Carlisle." Her impatience, as much as it killed him inside, was also terribly endearing.

"That may be true, but you are still a very young vampire," he pointed out. "Your emotional responses can be very powerful and uncontrollable, especially when you are facing a period of extreme change." He twirled one tendril of her hair around his finger and released it, watching as it coiled into a curl.

"Change like learning to be around humans?" she asked, her eyes distant. "Or like...marrying you?" She looked up at him, straight into his eyes, and he savored the feeling of being the center of her universe for a brief, precious moment.

"Perhaps a bit of both," he reasoned. "You have a lot on your mind these days, Esme. It can be challenging to take everything in at once."

Her lips turned down in a pout, and his fingers twitched with the need to touch them. "I just wish I had the patience to overcome my weaknesses," she said.

"You will acquire the patience, Esme. Some things don't happen overnight." He could have laughed at the irony of his words. "Actually, _most_ things don't." Thinking back on how they fell in love, indeed. But his heart sank when he saw that she still wasn't convinced.

"Esme, did you swim often when you were human?" he asked.

She raised an eyebrow, wondering where he was leading her now. "Yes..."

"Can you think back to a time when keeping your head above water required persistent effort, or else you would drown?"

He instantly imagined her swimming in a river as a rebellious teenager, and he had to hold back his grin. She nodded. "Yes, I remember."

"Well, imagine you are a human again, and you're treading water in the middle of a lake. You can hardly expect to keep your head above water all of the time. Sometimes you need to hold your breath and let yourself fall under for a few moments," he gestured, animating his metaphor in a way that would grab her attention. "If you try too hard to stay above the surface for too long, you'll only end up sinking. And I certainly don't want to see my fiancée lying at the bottom of the lake..."

His final line coaxed a helpless smile to her face, and he rejoiced at his victory.

"Lessons in buoyancy from Doctor Cullen," she quipped, a flirtatious glimmer in her eye.

"Take it from a man who swam the English Channel," he teased back.

He felt ten times taller when she placed her hands on his chest and whispered, "I'll take anything from that man."

And Carlisle hoped she meant it, because he had an endless list of things he wanted to give her.

**-}0{-**

Two days afterward, Carlisle went to church and prayed for Esme to see the light, to find the strength she sought to resist what frightened her in the world. Carlisle was used to waiting centuries for his prayers to be answered, so it came as quite a surprise when his prayers were answered almost overnight.

And so, in the end he had to swallow his own words of wisdom, but he thought they tasted rather sweet.

After her first successful day meeting humans in the town, he took her hand in his and walked with her, and he thought vividly in his mind that this could actually be real. She could be his wife, and he could be her husband. This was going to happen.

"Carlisle, You know what this means..."

He touched the ring on her finger as she whispered the fateful words, and no notion had ever given him so much hope.

"I can finally make you my wife."


	39. Skipping Milestones

**Skipping Milestones**

_Chapter 60 from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

He could hardly believe his eyes. Esme was in a church.

Her gaze was full of curiosity, lit by a twinkle of uncertainty as she clutched the side of the grand door. She paused in the threshold, her silhouette shining in a cloud of hazy sunlight. Her face was cast in shadow, but even then he could see her pouting red lips, her ripe rosy cheeks, her glistening doe-like eyes. Patiently he reached out for her, welcoming her inside.

She glanced down at his outstretched palm and carefully set her hand in his. Her fingers were still partly hidden by the lacy gloves she wore, and he privately wished she would take them off now that they were inside.

It stirred him, watching Esme enter this place he had considered a personal refuge for so long. It reminded him of the time he had first seen her enter his study – the way the atmosphere changed, forever altered by her presence, affected by the heartening glow of a beautiful woman.

Carlisle smiled in secret and turned away from Esme as he walked down the familiar center aisle toward the altar. He allowed her to choose whether or not she followed him inside. His heart opened wider as he felt himself coming closer to God, and his smile broadened as he heard the soft footsteps of his soon-to-be wife walking up behind him.

He genuflected and blessed himself humbly before rising to enter the front pew. By the time Esme had caught up to him, he had already seated himself. He watched her from the corner of his eye as she mimicked the series of unfamiliar gestures he had just performed and gracefully seated herself at his side.

There were a few inches of space between their bodies, and it left him feeling colder than he would have liked. But watching Esme discreetly pull those lacy gloves off her hands gave him a spurt of warmth. With restless fingers, she rolled the gloves up into a tight little wad and stuffed them into the pocket of her jacket.

Finding some peace from the sound of her breathing, Carlisle closed his eyes tightly and began his daily prayers. It made him feel whole again to be speaking to God after a long week of distractions. During the week he imagined the secular world peppered him with temptations and sins, and by the end of those seven days his body and soul were marred by holes that needed to be filled. Only coming to church and praying before the altar could fill those holes.

Throughout his life, Carlisle only had the church to call his sanctuary. Now he was finding that having Esme around was enough to at least partially fill the holes of his hardships. With both Esme and God in his life, Carlisle was discovering an entirely new level of completeness, one which seemed unimaginable before.

Esme's fidgeting on the bench beside him was a soothing reminder of both her presence and her unwitting effect on his concentration. In the throes of his religious recitation, Carlisle smiled to himself, his fingers comfortably cramp as they folded together more tightly in attempt to bolster his attention to prayer.

"You came here," she spoke aloud, ruining his only chance for submergence. Because it was Esme who had interrupted his prayers, he didn't mind. He looked over at her, curious about what she meant.

Her eyes pierced his, refreshed with realization. "Those Sundays in the spring when Edward took me out to the greenhouse... You came to liturgy."

Carlisle bit his lower lip, hesitant to continue the conversation because it reminded him of a difficult time. "I'd been missing it," he whispered.

She shifted awkwardly. "I'm so sorry."

He leaned closer to her in the hopes of erasing her shame. "It isn't your fault, love. The choice was mine. I chose to stay with you and Edward." He bent his head to get a better glimpse of her face. "I believe it was God's will that I stay."

She looked up from her lap, but did not meet his eyes. Her breath deepened as she stared at the altar. "You speak of God like you know Him." Her voice was rich with fascination.

When he finally caught her eyes, Carlisle was struck with pity at the thought that his future wife had such limited intimacy with her creator.

"I think it's extraordinary for one of our kind to maintain such a strong relationship with God when..." She stopped mid-sentence and looked away in embarrassment. It baffled Carlisle that after all this time, she was still so lost when it came to communicating with the Lord.

More than anything, he wanted to change that for her.

"God has not abandoned us, Esme," he reminded her, a sternness inflicting his soft voice. "We may not be human, but I do believe we still possess our souls. The soul does not perish. We are told this in the Bible." She cocked her head in interest as he spoke, her eyes wide and shining, hungry for truth. His voice was stronger when he continued, "Our souls live on; they are what allow us to love, and thus to also be one with the Lord."

Finally he looked to her, and his whole body was ravished by the striking image of her beauty; her skin shimmering faintly under the colors of the stained glass, her long hair shining like antique bronze, her eyes deep and consuming. "You and I..." he released the words in a breath, overcome by the sweeping sensation of unity with the woman seated beside him. "We would never feel what we feel for each other if we had no souls."

Her face was softened by mirthful relief. "How does Edward not see that?"

Carlisle almost had to chuckle. Not more than a year ago he would have asked the very same question, but now it was plain to him that no experience could more heartily confirm the existence of his soul than falling in love with Esme.

"He is not blind to my theories, but he has not seen time pass as I have. He was born into a vastly different world than I was, and as much as he denies it, this did shape his opinions of our kind...and religion."

Esme pursed her lips, an endearingly thoughtful look on her face that was becoming all too familiar to Carlisle. "_I _believe your theories, but Edward and I were both raised during the same era."

"Well, now, the world was much more obsessed with religion when I was human," Carlisle reminded her. "It was the often the greatest priority in a man's life, no matter what his position. As time goes on, it seems society has been drifting further and further away from God." His heart grew heavy when he thought of the growing distance between men and their creator.

Esme sounded reluctant. "I suppose I don't know any more than what I learned growing up."

"Were your parents quite religious?" Carlisle wondered.

A rueful look flashed on Esme's face. "They weren't exactly zealots, although they often did mention the 'wrath of God' with the intent to frighten me into behaving."

Carlisle resisted the urge to click his tongue. He would never understand how such heartless people could raise such a wonderfully loving girl like Esme. "It's a shame that so many people have always made God out to be an unforgiving Pantokrator. They say it to protect us from sin, but it only helps to draw ourselves further away from Him."

"God _is _our judge," Esme said. The way she sounded so nonchalant about it disturbed him.

"Yes, but He is not _judgmental_," Carlisle argued. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Sensing the opportunity to teach, Carlisle continued patiently, "God is all-forgiving, Esme. He will never hesitate to forgive us for our sins, so long as we are _truly_ repentant."

A ray of unrealized hope filled her eyes. "He will forgive us for _anything_?"

"Anything." He watched the thought sink into her for a minute as she stared wonderingly over the sparkling glass windows behind the altar. "He does not ruthlessly punish us for our transgressions either, despite what others may have told you," Carlisle added carefully. "He loves us unconditionally, as we are meant to love Him back."

Her silence comforted him, and he was pleased to watch her begin to understand such matters as well as he did. With time and patience he believed they could be equally yoked as a couple.

"I've never hated God," Esme suddenly confessed. "Not even after all I'd been through. I suppose I was too afraid to hate Him."

This revelation brought great pain to Carlisle. Imagining the struggles she had been through, not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally during that time of her life, was harrowing. He didn't know what to say in response. Luckily, she was not finished.

"I never blamed Him, though I came close to it." The slightest bright note to her voice forced Carlisle to meet her eyes. Her smile surprised him. "I'm glad I didn't. He has justly rewarded me." As her fingers slipped around his hand, Carlisle felt the burst of uncontainable warmth return.

Just the feel of her fingers lacing between his was so invigorating. In an instant his mind was filled with flashes of everlasting light, fantasies of kissing her with no restraint, loving her with a strength beyond his capabilities, and holding her under the stars.

His fingers tightened around hers, his breaths weakening from the little lightning storm of promising premonitions that had just ravished his mind. Lost in a world all his own, Carlisle laid his chin contentedly over Esme's head and pulled her against his chest.

"We're going to be married in this cathedral," he said wistfully, his eyes roaming the impressive structure surrounding them.

"It's beautiful," she murmured, the smile evident in her tone. " I can't imagine a more perfect place." Her small hand wrapped excitedly around his wrist, stealing his breath in one sound motion.

"I never imagined myself taking a wife." For some reason, feeling Esme's fingers tight around his hand made him feel the need to say this. It was all still so unreal, even as he could feel the heat of her body sealing her perfectly against him.

She tipped her head back, offering him a brilliant smile as she stared at him in disbelief. "Carlisle, you'd have to be a fool to believe no woman would _want _to be your wife."

Her sweet statement left him torn between laughter and tears, but he hid the emotions well. "No, it isn't that," he said softly. "I just never envisioned marriage as a part of the life I would lead."

"Would you have become a pastor, do you think?"

Only after she had asked the question did Carlisle realize he'd never really given much thought to the hypothetical.

"My father was adamant that I become like him. I suppose deep down I also knew the priesthood was my calling, though I would never admit to him that I found his particular tactics somewhat less appealing as a Christian."

"Hm. You would have made a wonderful priest," Esme declared with certainty, her head resting again on his shoulder.

An awkward laugh left his lips, causing her to bounce against him as he wrapped his arm around her. "Perhaps, but I'd much rather be marrying you."

His hand slid stealthily through her soft curls of hair, massaging the velvety nape of her neck beneath them. Gentle waves of her scent drew him closer, and his eyes closed in peaceful surrender.

He entertained the thought of kissing her without warning, but the slightest whimpering sound from Esme caused him to back away before he could initiate his fantasy. "What is it?"

"Sometimes," she paused, swallowed, then continued shakily, "the prospect of—marriage—makes me nervous."

The tingling of romance in the air swiftly dissipated in the wake of Esme's upset words. Carlisle couldn't understand what had caused her change in mood, but he was determined to put her concerns to rest as quickly and surely as possible.

"Why do you say that?" He almost wanted to cry.

"I don't really know why," she shook her head in shame. "Because of my past, I suppose."

_Her past. _The words made Carlisle cringe.

Esme's past memories were like lava struggling to harden in the pit of his stomach. Each time she mentioned them, the magma melted all over again into a burning river of rage and bitterness. Once it began to flow, it was a great challenge to cool it down.

Needing a place to root his bubbling anger, Carlisle set his hand down on Esme's knee and clutched her tightly. "Your prior experience of marriage was like that of a prison, Esme. You were bound to a man who did not love you, and you had no means of escape."

His body felt hot all over as he leaned closer to her, pleased by how her small body was dwarfed by his as he arched both his arms around her. "I understand _why_ you continue to fear it for that reason—truly, I do. But you must believe that matrimony is an inherently _good _thing. God _encourages_ this union."

When he felt her shiver in his arms, he couldn't be sure if it was good or bad. All it did was fuel his passion, regardless of whether it was caused by pleasure or worry.

"I put my faith in God from the very beginning that, should He bring a woman into my life, she would be the only one He'd made for me," Carlisle whispered into Esme's ear. "It took an awfully long time to find you, but here we are. Some miracles take centuries."

At last, a smile formed on her lips. He was tempted by the stifling desire to seal that smile with a luxurious kiss, but hearing her next words was more important to him.

"I would gladly accept marriage as a prison if it meant being imprisoned with you," she said.

Though the thought was somewhat erotically appealing, he did not wish for Esme to think of anything as a prison. She was a free woman now, and he loved her and respected her precisely because of that.

"You will merely be joined to me," he said, his fingertips gently skating over her knee. "This is the eternal covenant."

"Covenant." She echoed the word in a whisper, and it cooled the raging river of lava inside him. All thoughts of anger and vengeance were forgotten, blown away by one breath from the woman he loved.

Her eyelids wilted as he lifted her chin with his fingers. "The promise to remain faithful and devoted completely to one another until death," he said huskily.

"There is no death for us," she whispered back, a mocking dimple in her warm pink cheek. His fingers tilted her chin up further, and with every inch she became more vulnerable.

"Then it truly is an eternal covenant." Without hesitation, he took advantage of her vulnerability, grasping her lips with his own.

The kiss was sweeter than he'd hoped it would be.

**-}o{-**

There were virtually no times when Carlisle ever desired to be apart from Esme. There were, however, many times when he _required_ time away from her presence. Thank goodness he had Edward to help him control that. Recently, it was becoming harder and harder for Carlisle to have any time to himself. Most of it was his fault for refusing to go anywhere without Esme by his side. His hand seemed to be glued to hers more often than not. But there was one task left he had to finish in secret, and he was running out of time to complete it.

"One hour, Edward. Give me one hour," he hissed to his son as he closed the door to his study. _Lake Cordial by Moonlight _was mere strokes from being a finished piece of art.

Edward hadn't grumbled about being used as a means of distracting Esme. He knew this painting was important to his father, so he cooperated with the plan.

Carlisle listened as Edward initiated conversation with Esme, cleverly encouraging her to step outside with him as they discussed the possibility of an oncoming storm.

As soon as he was alone in the house, Carlisle rushed to collect his painting from the curtain behind his desk.

His paint brush felt lighter than ever as he dusted several blurs of color over the highlights on the ripples of the lake, and the imperfections in the tree bark that were illuminated by the moon. The painting had started as a wash of blues, grays and slight violets, but now it was writhing with dynamic sweeps of ultramarine and silver, and glittering specks of carefully placed wine red and emerald green. He had taken more risks with this one piece of art than any other, and every single one of those risks had paid off generously in the end.

And when that end finally came, he couldn't believe it really was... _the end. _

There never should be a time when a painting feels complete. All of the greatest artists would agree on that point. But Carlisle felt when he placed that final drop of blue oil on the canvas that he had worked this one painting to the point of utter completion.

He stepped back and stared breathlessly at the various streaks and dots of color he'd laid on the canvas. After months of painting piece by piece, the composition had finally come together to create something out of a dream. He had set out to capture a realistic image of the backyard lake, but the final product seemed more of a fantasy piece than anything else. As he'd gotten lost in his artwork, the colors he became inspired to use grew more vivid.

Details beyond what the naked human eye could see shimmered to life in the paints he'd chosen. If he glanced too quickly at the painted lake, he would swear he could see it rippling under the false spot of moonlight. Although he would never admit it to anyone but himself, Carlisle was incredibly proud of himself for completing the painting, a piece he had chosen to dedicate entirely to his future wife.

And he knew exactly where he wanted to hang it.

**-}o{-**

She was quite hard to resist as she sat there across from him, her eyes trained on him like a keen hunter watching a prize bird flying through the air. Perhaps she was having difficulty following him; if this were the case, he didn't understand how he could stop once he'd started.

He couldn't explain what had happened. He'd asked Esme to join him for a game of chess, but she didn't seem to notice that this was only a clever way to keep her in one place so he could talk endlessly to her about the wedding.

Evening gave way to a rich, clear night, and suddenly he was thinking of too many things at once. It was a bit like when he was at the hospital with too many patients to treat, but it was not a demanding situation. He _wanted _to be overwhelmed with thoughts. He _enjoyed _having too much to think about when he had his wedding to plan.

Now it made him weep with joy when he thought back to the times when the word 'wedding' used to make his heart grow cold. There was so much still to discuss with Esme, so many decisions to be made. He desperately wanted her to have a part in making those decisions with him, but at the moment his ideas were running too fast for his voice.

So this was what being overjoyed felt like. Carlisle could understand why the happiest people he'd known always had trouble speaking at a normal pace. As much as he tried to keep his voice calm and steady, he could hear his words coming out rushed and stuttering with sheer excitement. Whenever he caught Esme's eye, he could see her quiet analysis of his unusual behavior, her bemused delight evident on the quivering curve of her lips. But all he could do was keep spilling every one of his thoughts as they came to him, not even sparing himself enough time to breathe.

"Father Simon said he would be honored do the ceremony for us. He's never presided over a wedding before. Can you believe that?"

Esme raised her eyebrows in apparent interest, and her lips moved a bit without producing words.

"I was so pleased when he agreed to be our priest. I've been wanting to introduce you to him for so long. I know he will adore you."

She half smiled in an embarrassed way. Carlisle chuckled whimsically as he swept one of Esme's vulnerable pawns off its space on the chess board. Her eyes widened by a margin as he gracefully dropped her discarded piece into his box.

"And you'll of course need to carry flowers, Esme. We'll make a bouquet for you from our garden here. Or if you fancy one arranged by a florist, we can do that too. Or maybe we can have both. You can decide. I would like you to have roses, though. Maybe white or red. And there should be baby's breath, too. And orange blossoms, absolutely."

He averted his eyes to the window for a moment as he paused to take a deep breath. He smiled to himself as he envisioned Esme in her white wedding gown, radiant in her beauty as she clutched a humble bouquet of handpicked flowers.

She hummed softly to acknowledge his rambling string of thoughts. The sound encouraged him to plow on in more detail, though he couldn't say why.

"So, I was thinking it may be nice to make it an evening service. The cathedral looks breathtaking at night – not that it doesn't look just as brilliant in the daytime – but there is truly something magical about it when it's just starting to grow dark outside. Imagine the entire altar lit by candles, everything glowing... It would be lovely, don't you think?"

She again muttered sweetly in response, and he assumed her muttering to be an agreement.

As his fingers multi-tasked on the chess board, he became aware of Esme's deliberate glances to the game, subtly inviting him to pay closer attention to his moves. Ironically, every time he was distracted by yet another stray thought, he just happened to steal one of Esme's pieces from the board. Every time he emptied one of her squares, he felt a satisfying little surge of victory that he couldn't explain. It was something like how he imagined removing another article of her clothing would feel...

Distractions! Everything was a distraction tonight. The wedding. Esme's stare. Esme's scent. Thoughts of their future together. This blasted chess game.

Carlisle had never really appreciated the fullest capacity his mind had to offer until now. He was thinking of at least a hundred things at once, speaking about something entirely different, and dreaming about things he could not yet share out loud.

But at the heart of his inner chaos, there was a deep, warming glow, a calming beacon of peace reminding him that no matter what trials came his way, he could rely on Esme to remain by his side for the rest of eternity. His body came alive in a way he'd never felt before, just from the thought of how many ways he could show her that he loved her. As her husband he would care for her and treasure her, and he would continue to earn her trust and devotion over time. He could not wait an instant longer to experience the wonders of marriage with such a remarkable woman. He wanted nothing more than to be her brightest light, to savor every second of their new life, growing together as a couple.

The joy he felt when he thought of these things was untamable, so unlike the joy he had felt from anything before. It was as vast and infinite as an ocean, and as free and boundless as a wild horse. He felt the heat of the sun itself burning in his chest when he looked at Esme, and she was looking back at him. Not even a single blink could break their connection. They were linked already on a divine level.

Waiting for his wedding made him feel like a child waiting for Christmas. He could barely sit still from excitement. Esme, however, seemed to be taking in the joy of the moment with a much more conservative air. Her eyes were bright with delight, but her face was tranquil and the slightest bit amused as she listened to him speak endlessly about his plans.

"Oh, Esme, I am so ready to marry you," he murmured in a very quiet voice as he surrendered one of his chess pieces to her graceful fingers. She tucked her lower lip beneath her teeth, her eyes cloudy as if she hadn't heard his words. It didn't surprise him. By now she should have tuned out everything he was saying; he'd been running his tongue all night long.

Part of him knew the real reason why he could not keep quiet. By talking non-stop, he was covering up his nerves. If he concentrated on his excitement, and forced it to dominate his conversation, he could avoid being caught in a corner of silence while Esme inspected his every insecurity.

Sheepish waves of heat crept up the back of his neck as he turned away from her to look down at the rug. As he stretched out his leg, he felt his knee collide with hers beneath the table. Like every other touch, that unexpected bump of their legs was magical.

He had an eternity full of magical touches awaiting him. It just couldn't begin soon enough.

"When I think of spending forever with you, I... I am overwhelmed with happiness." His words were no longer rushed, but slow and sincere. He glanced at Esme as he made what he planned to be his final move on the chessboard, curious to see if her expression would change when he put her in check. She was smiling to herself, but he did not know whether it was because she was expecting him to emerge the victor or because of what he'd said to her moments before.

"We don't have much longer to wait now, my love," he said as he looked to the window, pleased to see the sun rising for a new day. They were that much closer to being married. When he at last caught her eye, he sighed. "I know a wonderful pair of seamstresses in town. Two sisters. Delightful women. I'm sure I could commission them to make a gown for you."

Apparently Esme was not bothered that their eight hour chess game had still not been resolved. She perked up at the mention of her wedding gown, looking more like a sixteen-year-old than a twenty-six-year-old as she straightened in her chair. "Do you think so?"

Carlisle smiled, endeared by the way she tried to contain her eagerness. "We can have your measurements taken sometime this week... If you're comfortable with that, of course."

She looked slightly nervous at the prospect, but he knew she would let nothing stand in the way of their wedding plans. He'd expected her to agree readily, and she did.

"I would love that."

His smile widened as he stood up from his chair, reveling in a rare feeling of immense contentment. He was tempted to say he'd never talked for so many straight hours before in his life without running out of things to say. He felt lighter in a way after saying everything that was on his mind. His head was clear, and so was the horizon that lay beyond the window.

"I think I'd like to walk for a while. Will you join me?"

She nodded cheerfully and reached out for his hand. He held her tightly as he guided her alongside him, escorting her out the door and down the steps into the shadowy garden path. Her hand felt so warm and precious embedded in his own. It was something that continuously thrilled him no matter how many times he felt it, a perpetual novelty.

The sky glowed with dim colors from the wakening sun, but the trees surrounding the yard were looming dark and still, like majestic steeples of pine protecting their house. The last few crickets chirped on softly, dropping off steadily as the night reached its end. The air was cool yet heavy with the promise of a humid afternoon, and everything was swimming in succulent shades of blue.

Such tranquil, luxurious blues reminded him strongly of the painting he still had hidden in his study.

Carlisle glanced nervously toward the glistening shores of Lake Cordial in the darkness. Each time he saw that lake it seemed to be more beautiful. He only hoped his painting would still do it justice.

Sometime today he would have to show his finished painting to Esme...

In the broadening daylight, Carlisle felt himself growing bolder. His feelings for Esme were not changing, but they were certainly growing stronger, and he felt he had to do something to keep them from bursting out like an ink pen under too much pressure. The only way he could think to quell his desires was to hold her closer.

As he wrapped his arm around her back, he allowed his hand to gently clutch her waist. He tugged her subtly closer, not satisfied until her hip brushed against his with every step he took.

He observed the way she ducked her head and tried not to show any change in the way she carried herself as he changed the position of his hand. Despite her cover, he could see that his intimate gesture had affected her. He only wished she wouldn't be so shy about it.

"You've been very quiet all night," he finally said, secretly hoping he could guilt her into speaking more.

He was surprised when she didn't immediately apologize to rectify her crime. "I don't think I've been any quieter than usual," she pointed out. "You've just been very...loquacious."

He couldn't help but laugh. Looking back on the night, she was obviously right. "I suppose I have."

Her body seemed warmer as she rubbed her head against his shoulder and stared up at him. "I don't mind. I like listening to you."

"Even when I ramble?"

She smirked. "We both have a tendency to ramble, Carlisle, but I think we can agree that your version of 'rambling' is the more bearable of the two."

Her comment was not delivered in such a way that she'd expected him to laugh, but his response was much more enthusiastic than normal. He supposed it was only caused by sheer joy with everything that was happening in his life right now, but he was sure Esme must have been rather confused by his reaction. By the time they had made their way to the center of the garden, his belly ached from laughter.

When he recovered enough to speak clearly, he poked her teasingly in the side. "Now that you mention it, we've been walking through this garden for nearly ten minutes and I've not heard you utter one word about how many more kinds of flowers you wished you'd planted."

Her face was bashful, but her voice was confident as she replied. "I figured I'd let you do the talking for the rest of the day. You were off to quite an impressive start last night."

Suddenly Carlisle felt slightly guilty for taking up all of those hours with his rambling. Esme hadn't interrupted him the entire time, even when he likely hadn't been making much sense. He knew her happiness might manifest itself in a different way than his, but that didn't mean he should take advantage of her silence.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm just very excited...and a little nervous."

"For the wedding?" She almost sounded hopeful.

As he stared back down at her, he thought he could see the confirmation in her eyes, the answer to her hours of silence the night before. He believed that if either of them were to admit to feeling restive, they would both be aware of the reason behind the feeling. They shared similar fears and dreams when it came to consummation and everything that lay beyond that. Esme's question was loaded, unable to hide in the wispy innocence of her voice.

"I don't know..." he murmured, at a complete loss. He felt her watching him as he reached out to touch the budding cornflowers behind him as he walked. "I don't know."

His chest tightened as he felt Esme's hand cradling his chin. He wanted to tell her more, to share his feelings and hopes and even his fears regarding their impending union, but he honestly did not know how to explain any of it _– _even to himself.

He released his worries in a long sigh, picking one of the small blue flowers from the bush to place it neatly behind a lock of Esme's fine hair. "You should wear something blue on our wedding day. It is a symbol of purity."

Her eyes glassy, she tilted her head to the side and slid her hand further along his jaw. Everything about her was inviting him in; he would have considered it inhumane to resist.

Tendrils of heated willpower built up inside of him as he bent down to kiss her. Sensations that were most unfamiliar began to form in the pit of his chest. He felt oddly as if he were on stage, standing under a hot beam of light being cast from an oculus above him, the focal point of an attentive audience that did not really exist. He did not understand these feelings, or why they would come at a moment like this _– _a moment that could not have been more private.

The kiss did not last long at all, but at least a hundred separate thoughts coursed rapidly through his head as his lips danced with Esme's, the most potent of those thoughts being a desire to kiss her more passionately than he had dared to before. Bluntly speaking, he wanted more than anything to kiss her not only with his lips, but with his tongue. He wanted to explore the inside of her mouth, to know her taste and texture more completely than he had ever imagined. But he resisted the temptation for one very plain reason. Kissing with one's tongue was just a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

With reluctance, he withdrew, gently caressing her pout with his knuckle to feel her trembles before they receded. Such power he had over her... She had no idea that the power she had over him was just as strong.

"You tell me so much in just one kiss," she whispered in a musical voice.

Her eyes fluttered as she stared wonderingly at his lips, and the burn of the imaginary spotlight again rested heavily on his shoulders. He swallowed hard. "There are some things words simply cannot say."

"I love you so much it hurts, Carlisle," she said, her words low and achy.

He clutched her hand at once. "I can't bear the thought of you in pain."

"It is a pain in my heart," she whispered, her palm resting over her breast. He wept inside.

"I know it. I know it well." His fingers tangled clumsily in her hair as he struggled not to cry. "When we are married, Esme, I will give you everything you thought you could never have."

In reality he wanted to give her so much more than that. He wanted to give her mountains and oceans and skies and stars as much as he wanted to give her love and promises and loyalty and trust.

"You've already given me that," she answered, putting an abrupt end to his lofty list.

"I will never stop giving," he murmured against her forehead, eyes so close to hers he could see the remnants of their human color sparkling at the corners.

"Neither will I." Her words melted into his mouth as she pressed her lips to his. He struggled to keep standing as she kissed him with enticing force. Somehow he felt that she was draining him of his strength with every tug of her incessant lips, collecting the power he thought he possessed and using it to her own advantage.

"I missed this," she breathed, tangling her fingers with his as she held his hand.

Carlisle rested his forehead on hers as he welcomed waves of her scent into his lungs. "I feel complete every time our lips touch," he sighed, punctuating his thoughts with a small kiss. "A oneness...a fullness." His hands sealed to her waist as he dove in for more. "So satisfying..."

Her neck fell back, and she released a purely feminine sigh of contentment. It was a sound he wished he'd never heard, and one he desperately needed to forget if he wished to spend the rest of the day fully clothed.

_Just one more kiss, _he told himself, over and over again. After the fifth time, he finally held himself back. And by some miracle, Esme was willing to comply with his resistance. The sun was brighter when he backed away and opened his eyes. He couldn't let the day slip past him so quickly when there was still so much they needed to do before the wedding.

"Come inside with me. I have something to show you." Hoping to distract himself as much as Esme, Carlisle tugged her back into the house. His painting had been calling to him since he'd taken her outside. Now everything blue was taunting him with the urge to show her just how well he had managed the color on canvas.

The instant he made it to his study, he let go of her hand and rushed to the curtain. With the same trick he used to pull bandages off a patient's skin, he revealed the hidden painting in one quick, painless motion.

Despite his nerves, Carlisle was quite proud to finally be unveiling his enigmatic painting before Esme's eyes. She was the most brilliant artist he knew, and thus the one and only critic he had to face. He knew she would never see anything he'd made as being less than perfect, but he still felt vulnerable putting his work on display for her to judge.

Her eyes lit up as soon as she saw the stunning blue scene. She stared at that painting as if it were the finest treasure, her expression positively sparkling with wonder. She lifted a hand to her face, resting one delicate finger on her lip in awe as her eyes flickered over the finished painting.

"Oh, Carlisle," she said breathlessly. "It's even more beautiful than I remembered."

Her compliment washed over him, warming him with relief.

"That's because the last time you saw it, it was only half-finished," he chuckled comfortably, stepping closer to her as he felt more at ease.

She clutched him unexpectedly when she felt him beside her. "You put your soul into this painting." She said it like a secret, planting a curious kiss on his shoulder that burned him even through the fabric of his shirt. "That is what makes it beautiful."

He could not argue with that. The entirety of his soul had spilled into that painting, and so much more. But the idea that this was what made it beautiful to Esme was the most generous compliment he could receive.

He could hardly wait until he was able to spill his entire soul into _her._ What beautiful art awaited them with pure, unadulterated love as their medium?

Plagued by a pleasant shudder at the thought, Carlisle blurted unthinkingly, "I want to hang it somewhere in the house."

Esme looked surprised. "Not here in your study?"

He stared at his painting almost challengingly from across the room, frozen in place. "No..."

Her brow furrowed at his cryptic tone. "In the music room?"

Her second guess made him crack a knowing smile. "The walls are _red _in the music room."

Flustered by her mistake, Esme quickly shook her head. "Oh, of course. That wouldn't look right at all."

That was when the pieces fell together for her. Only one room in the house was blue enough to be a suitable home for that painting. Blue like a regal summer's night, deep and warm as the Pacific Ocean. Her eyes reflected that very blue as her lips parted in realization, but she was careful not to show any hints of it on her face.

"What room did you have in mind?" she asked. Her voice flowed like lace _– _delicate and airy, filled with tiny gaps where she paused to take unnecessary breaths.

"I want to hang it in the bedroom upstairs." He wondered if it would have been a disaster had he slipped and said '_our _bedroom' like he'd wanted to.

The expression on Esme's face gave him his answer.

Perhaps it was better that he'd played it safe.

"Will you come help me find a place for it?" he asked, his voice sounding darker than he'd intended.

Esme shakily tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear, then nodded with sudden certainty. "I'd love to."

He took up his painting and a nail for hanging it, and led Esme the rest of the way to the master suite.

He couldn't have picked a better time to take her upstairs. The sunrise was just about to reach its peak on the distant horizon. Colors that they rarely got to see would cast enchanting shadows and highlights all over the room.

He wanted her to have a say in where the painting hung, though he had given much thought already as to where it would be best to place it. When he stepped inside the bedroom, a chill ran through his body, and he suddenly forgot his plans. Esme's feet made soft caressing sounds on the plush carpet as she followed him inside. Her scent was already so strong within the room, but when she came up behind him, he was completely enveloped in it. Like honeysuckle after a long rain, and a dash of something exotic.

His breath slowed to savor her perfume as he took a few moments to survey the room. It was not a simple room by any means. Most rooms were composed of four walls and four corners, and a flat ceiling that stretched over them, forming a perfect cube. But like so many of the rooms in this old mansion, the master bedroom was uniquely crafted. The ceiling was not flat, but rather curved and vaulted, sloping at grand and elegant angles to accommodate the stone column of the tall fireplace. The room did not have four straight, clean walls, but rather walls that curved in places and merged to form small niches where shadows could gather and cobwebs could hide. Naturally, Esme had the room cleaned from top to bottom, and it looked very different when half the furniture was not covered in sheets and caked in gray blankets of dust.

In those corners of the room where the walls cut into themselves, he could see the small, decorative silver sconces that hid between them. They would have been perfect for holding candles.

The more Carlisle explored the room, the more places he found suitable for placing his candles. The fireplace mantle, the vanity table, the nightstands, the window sills, the dresser...

But he was getting ahead of himself. Before he could find places for his candles, he had to find a place for his painting.

Carlisle cleared his throat and began to move comfortably about the still unfamiliar room, searching for the perfect spot. The delicate blue curtains whispered to one another with hollow swishing sounds as he passed them, as if they were disturbed by the presence of a man in their room after spending so many months at ease with only a woman. He turned his head to give the curtains a gentle glare, and was rewarded with a face full of sunlight that burned his eyes.

He sighed in agitation and stepped out of the sun. Under his right foot, the floorboards beneath the carpet creaked in surprise from the force of his step. Surely they were used to the dainty steps of a female. Like the curtains, they would simply have to adjust to the mannerisms of a male. Whether they approved of him or not, this was going to be _his _bedroom too. And there was no better way to claim territory of this room than to hang his painting on the wall.

Esme would have found his defiance with the bedroom furnishings very amusing had she known the nature of his thoughts. His tendency to personify the inanimate objects around him was never more of a nuisance than it was right now. The teeth of the brass fireplace screen seemed to smirk at him, the potted plants shook their leaves like wagging fingers at him, and against the opposite wall, the armoire stood with intimidatingly broad shoulders, challenging his dominance. But Carlisle resolved to show them all who the true owner of this room was.

He could feel Esme's eyes on his back as he stepped over to the brooding armoire, boldly lifting his painting up beside the grand piece of furniture to test its placement on the wall. Carlisle smiled to himself as the armoire seemed to cower at the beauty of his painting when he held it up high.

He slowly carried it to the other side of the room and flaunted it in front of the gossipy blue curtains. This time they fluttered with excitement when he passed them, their whispers full of praise for his work. The fireplace screen was grinning and the potted plants stretched out their leaves to shake his hand.

The room had welcomed his painting, and by extension it had begrudgingly welcomed him.

He held it up proudly to every wall with space enough to fit it, considering carefully how the light reflected on it in certain spots, and how often it might be cast in shadow if it were to stay there throughout the day. He experimented with placing it closer to the windows and on walls where there were no windows at all.

"What do you think?" he asked for Esme's opinion. She probably had a million suggestions to give him. Lord knows she could only keep quiet for so long when it came to decorating a room. He thought it strange that she hadn't yet spoken up.

"Hm?"

He glanced over his shoulder to find her staring attentively at his face.

"Right here." He slid the painting up a little higher on the wall in question. "How does this look?"

He tried to find flickers in her expression that might give him a clue as to what her true opinion was, but she was not showing him anything. "I think it looks perfect everywhere."

Deep down he somehow believed her. "You're the expert decorator," he laughed nervously. "You must have an opinion."

"I'm only being honest." She shrugged complacently and folded her hands. "You could place it on any wall."

His eyes scavenged the long blue walls for the tenth time, searching for somewhere he hadn't tested. His throat tightened when his eyes fell on the bed behind Esme. Her small body made the size of it look even more overwhelming as it loomed behind her, like a giant ocean wave about to crush an unsuspecting young woman on shore.

Of all the things in this room, he wasn't about to let the bed threaten him.

"I haven't tried the wall behind the bed yet," he said in a low voice before he started toward the other side of the room.

"Don't put it on the wall behind the bed," Esme sputtered suddenly. He glanced back at her, surprised by her outburst.

"Why not?"

Her feet shifted on the carpet as she rubbed her fingers together in a nervous way. "Because..." she paused to swallow, "I want to be able to see it _from _the bed."

It dawned on him then, why she had seemed so shy about hanging the painting in this room in the first place. This was the very place she had dreamed of seeing it every night, a part of his soul to watch over her in the darkness, and keep her loneliness at bay. And as his gaze steadily clutched hers, he could see that they were both entertaining the same fantasy.

In his mind he saw the white velvet slope of a woman's bare back, her ghostly arms quaking as she reached for her lover. Protruding from the mass of darkness surrounding her, Carlisle could see his own profile, his own blond hair, his own aroused eyes. His dream-self bowed over the woman, and together they were consumed by a blanket of black, shuddering as they sealed their embrace. Behind their undulating bodies, his painted image of Lake Cordial by moonlight swelled and faded into the background.

"Oh."

A guilty dimple twitched on his cheek, and he could feel an inappropriate smile touch his lips like a butterfly landing in the wrong place.

He walked away from the bed, his legs still stiff and stinging from the exertion his dream-self had tolerated moments ago. Esme watched him like a hawk until he reached the other side of the room.

"I thought about putting it above the fireplace," he told her secretively. All he had to do was hold it over the mantle and she was staring at it like she had just seen North Star rise in the night sky.

"Do you approve?" He hadn't needed to ask.

"I do."

Seconds later the nail was in the wall, and his canvas had found its home. He stepped backwards until he was standing at Esme's side, and her breaths beat against his skin. He had to admit the painting looked near perfect in its place, but there was still something missing.

"I know it still doesn't have a frame," he said regretfully. But Esme interrupted him.

"I think it looks brilliant without the frame." She extended one delicate finger and drew a small rectangle around his painting, squinting one eye as she traced her invisible line in midair. "Less is more, wouldn't you say?"

He had to agree with her; less was often better. He wished there were less days before their wedding, less space between them, less clothing on their bodies...

Days ago he would have winced at the nature of his thoughts, but now, oddly, he wanted to smile at them. He turned to stare at his stunning fiancée _– _at her globe-like eyes and her parted pink lips _– _and he wondered how he could have ever hated himself for wanting to love her until she lost all grips on the physical world.

She smiled mischievously when she caught the glitter of indecent thoughts in his stare, and her voice came out a husky whisper. "What?"

"Can you see it from the bed?" His eyes flickered to the object in question, and hers followed.

She straightened her shoulders and moved swiftly to the edge of the bed. Her feet slowed down when she came within arm's reach of the mattress. Carlisle came up behind her and gallantly brushed the long blue canopy curtain out of her way.

He should have known watching Esme recline on a bed while he stood right in front of her would be an unforgiving blow to his self-control.

"Yes, I can see it."

_Thank heavens_.

"Then I think we've found the perfect place for it."

**-}0{-**

As grateful as Carlisle was for his son's absence during the better part of the day, he couldn't deny his relief and joy when Edward finally made it home for the evening. What made his return even more wonderful were the gifts he'd brought for the soon-to-be newlyweds.

The painting Edward had made for Esme and the violin he'd found for Carlisle were perfect, but the most impressive feat of all was that Edward had managed to keep both gifts a secret until tonight. Watching the way Esme's eyes lit up when she saw the beautiful artwork her son had worked so hard to create for her was enjoyable enough for Carlisle. He hadn't needed a present of his own to be satisfied, but Edward had given him one anyway, blending the persistent themes of art and music that seemed integral to their home these days.

No scene could compare to Esme and Edward smiling and laughing, so close to him. Their hands would brush his arms if they gestured too abruptly in their conversation. Esme might lay her chin on his shoulder if she decided to indulge the affectionate urge. The familiar scent of oil paints and the experimental sounds of unresined strings on a new violin added an indefinable dimension to his dream. Carlisle had felt nothing so close to euphoria before, save for the few times he'd kissed Esme without restraint.

The idea that he could be so fortunate to see scenes just like this one for the rest of his life continued to plague his heart. Could it be too good to be true? Or was it a blessing he would one day come to take for granted like everything else?

He scribbled the questions in his journal that night after Edward had given them their gifts, as memories of the warm gathering continued to swirl in his mind. The concept of 'family' had never before seemed so tangible to Carlisle. Now he felt like it was something he could truly reach out and touch with his fingers, not just yearn for from afar.

But the first thing he wanted to reach for that night was his new violin. Even before his fingers stroked the flawless wooden curves of the instrument, he could tell that Edward had requested every recommended treatment from those who knew the craft. Caring for an instrument was very much like caring for a sick patient. They required constant attention and dedication; a half-slack job wouldn't keep them alive for long. The secret to longevity, to preserving their music was tireless diligence on the part of their caregiver.

When Carlisle first let his fingers explore the intricacies of the violin he was both intimidated and smitten. He allowed his senses to feast on the glossed wood and the delicate yet sturdy strings. He anticipated sweet potential with every curious pluck of his fingers. Edward watched him become acquainted with the instrument, just like a father watching his son explore the interworkings of a bicycle.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Esme was distracted with finding a perfect place to hang her new painting in the library. Her footsteps scurried over the ceiling in a comforting and amusing rhythm. Edward would glance up every once in a while, a grin on his face as he clearly enjoyed his gifts being the main source of both his counterparts' amusement this evening.

Carlisle let the tempo of Esme's restless rummaging guide his bow over the strings of the violin. He thought of the way she became entirely engrossed when she played her harp, and he wondered if he must have looked that way now. It was easy to become lost in the sound of music. Even so, it fascinated him that he had the power to create certain chords at will. He had never felt so at ease or so in control when he sat at the piano.

The violin was more suited to Carlisle's need for precision. It was not as liberal or as simple as the piano. The piano was wide and open, allowing his hands to travel in too many directions that he could never decide which one to take. In contrast, the violin was confined and strict – even grueling in some ways – but he enjoyed the roughness of it, the intensity of a motion that consumed his entire torso rather than just two hands. When he played the violin, he used the same muscles he did when sculpting and carving. The act was more physical, almost an exercise.

He loved it, even more than he'd thought he would.

"You were born to play that thing," Edward remarked during a break in the music. His voice was raspy and lazy, but full of joy. Carlisle looked over to the corner of the room where his son was seated with a crooked grin on his face, his eyes sparkling proudly.

Carlisle sheepishly ducked his head under the guise of inspecting his bow. "I do enjoy it very much."

Edward rubbed his chin suspiciously. "You're sure you never played it before, when you were a human?"

Something slightly sad clutched Carlisle's heart as he diverted his gaze. "Fairly sure," he whispered to the window.

The somber mood in the room shifted as Edward extricated himself from his cushioned armchair. "Want to head down to the lake with me?"

Carlisle glanced quickly from the window to the ceiling.

Edward smiled in understanding. "She'll be all right for a few minutes alone."

So Carlisle complied.

Compared to the cozy stillness of indoors, the night outside was rustling and dark. Half the sky was an unyielding black, rippling with thick, fast-moving cumulous clouds, while the other half was crisp and clear, with hundreds of tiny stars pinned across it. The waves on the lake were stronger than usual because of the wind, and Carlisle quickly discarded his shoes when he left the porch, itching to dip his bare feet into the restless waters.

Edward did the same as he hurried out the door, but he was still faster than his father.

Carlisle couldn't contain a boyish grin as he watched Edward splash victoriously through the shallow waves. But as was the tendency of a perfectionist doctor, he paused to roll up the bottoms of his trousers before following suit. Edward, on the other hand, had no qualms about getting his clothes soaked.

With a patient step, Carlisle allowed himself to wade in the invitingly warm waters. The lake lapped at his toes with its many tongues of deep blue silk. He tilted his head back to let the wind sweep across his face, breathing in the distant fragrance of sweet burning wood and sleepy summer flora. His shoulder still ached pleasantly from the missing weight of the violin, and when he closed his eyes, he felt the lingering urge to move his arms about as if he were still playing the instrument. He was still imagining that hearty caress of the bow against the strings, still thinking about what music he would create the next time he got his hands on it.

Carlisle wondered if all musicians felt a constant pull to their beloved instrument. He wondered if that was one of the reasons Edward could always be seen drumming his fingers on the edge of a desk as if it were a piano. The thought made him smile.

Back in the house, a muffled clatter of moving furniture made him glance curiously at the lit upstairs window. Edward chuckled.

"Has she found a place for your painting yet?" Carlisle asked the boy.

Edward shot Carlisle a dubious look. "You know Esme. She'll be searching till dawn, and even when she settles on a place, she'll still debate herself on it for the next three days."

The next three days that would bring him even closer to being married, Carlisle thought with a gulp.

Edward ignored the thought and bent down to pick up a small stone from the rocky shore. He twirled it methodically between his fingers as he watched Carlisle's expression from the corner of his eye. Then he stood up straight and attempted to send the stone skipping across the surface of the lake. When his attempt failed, he stooped down to find another stone and tried again. The second stone plopped unceremoniously on the second skip, and Edward crossed his arms, mumbling about the lake being too choppy for skipping stones tonight.

Carlisle stood beside his son and considered the unsteadily rolling waves of Lake Cordial. It almost seemed like the lake was anxious for something, sensing something awry in the air on this night. When at last the clouds parted to make way for the moon, Carlisle saw an almost uncanny recreation of his painting take shape right before his eyes. The striking image brought his mind back to earlier in the day when he and Esme found a place for it to hang on their bedroom wall. Somewhere in the house behind him, that painting preserved his beloved lake in the shadowy stillness of a room he had still not fully explored.

But the promise of future exploration left him with a fitful and unruly heart, and the aches he felt were no longer remnants from his vigorous violin playing.

Edward briefly looked in the other direction, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to rebuff Carlisle's private thoughts. Inevitably, Carlisle managed to catch his son's eye when he lifted his head. He worried the moment would be awkward, but instead he saw the strangest smile on Edward's face. A small, knowing smile _– _a comfortable smile _– _unheard of, but somehow understood. Edward chuckled tentatively, and Carlisle could only imagine how utterly bemused he must have looked at his son's reaction. He wouldn't have been surprised if his expression were the sole cause of Edward's laughter to begin with.

Feeling vulnerable, Carlisle fought fruitlessly with the wind to keep his shirt tucked in. Like everything else, the wind seemed to be hassling him to let go of his restraints, scattering his thoughts and feelings into the world where everyone could see them and judge them. In his peripheral, he could see Edward shaking his head, smiling with humored pity.

"There's no use in hiding yourself out here, Carlisle. You're an open book to me."

Carlisle knew it was true, but he also knew he could control whether Edward got a fleeting glimpse of the pages, or a long and detailed read.

Edward laughed gleefully at the metaphor, but Carlisle struggled to produce the slightest chuckle.

"You're awfully tense," Edward noticed. "I think you spent too much time playing that violin."

Carlisle grimaced and rubbed his left shoulder protectively. "I feel better when I'm playing." He glanced to the side and noticed the clever smirk on Edward's face.

"I feel the same about the piano sometimes. It's an outlet for your emotions, that's what it is," Edward said empathetically. "But you should relax for a while. You'll find a balance."

Taking his son's advice, Carlisle obediently rolled his shoulders back and found himself a spot to sit down beneath a familiar willow tree. He settled into the marshy grass with his back propped against the tree trunk and his feet stretched far enough to still touch the water.

Still standing in the shallow of the lake, Edward entertained himself by crumbling some chunks of silt between his hands. "So I understand you plan on taking Esme to the Sauvageon sisters for her wedding gown," he suddenly changed the subject.

"That was my intention." Carlisle looked warily up at him. "Were you trying to raise an issue, Edward?"

"No, no. Not at all." Edward shrugged and laced his fingers together, watching the dark coating of lake matter sift between them. "I was just wondering if you'd given any thought to Esme's _sanity _when you considered it."

The distinct flavor of casual sarcasm in Edward's voice made Carlisle cringe. Esme was still learning the art of control, but she certainly wasn't any worse than Edward had been at her age. All Carlisle could do was defend her. "You and I both know that she's now fully capable of—"

"I wasn't implying any issues with her _thirst_, Carlisle," Edward interrupted pointedly.

Then Carlisle realized the true nature of Edward's worries, and he almost felt like laughing. "The Sauvageon sisters have always been very kind to me. I'm sure they'll be no different with Esme," he spoke reassuringly, clutching handfuls of grass and sprinkling them over his thigh for distraction. "Besides, they owe me a favor for the time I treated their ill mother."

Edward raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Now that's a step forward for you. Actually letting someone repay you for a debt," he said thoughtfully as he settled into the grass beside Carlisle. "Back when I first met you I'm pretty sure you never would have let _that_ happen."

It was true that Carlisle had often felt a little guilty for letting people return favors for him, even when they were well deserved, but the guilt he once felt was almost entirely gone now. It was strange to not be feeling it as strongly as he used to.

"Well, maybe I'm changing," he admitted pensively, brushing the collected bits of grass off his trousers. It bothered him when Edward didn't respond right away.

After a long pause, the boy's first words sounded even more threatening. "You know what I've noticed over these past few months about you?"

Carlisle shrank back against the willow bark, almost scared to hear it. He stared indignantly at Edward, waiting for the dreaded punch line.

"A part of you still actually_ fears _change," Edward remarked, "which is ironic for a man who's already lived through two centuries."

"There are certain changes I do not fear," Carlisle argued, unconvinced by his own soft-spoken defiance.

"I disagree with that," Edward said, looking all the more relaxed as he propped his head on bent elbow and reclined in the grass. "You _do_ fear marrying Esme, in a way."

"Absurd." The word itself was weak, lonely, and insecure. Carlisle wished he hadn't said it as he promptly lifted himself off the ground, clutching the willow branches for support.

"I think you fear that taking a wife somehow makes you selfish," Edward's strong, truthful voice carried on behind him. "I think you worry that you'll lose sight of who you used to be before you married Esme."

Carlisle could no longer deny the accuracy of the things his son was saying. Determined to keep his face hidden, he stepped carefully through a maze of roots until he was mostly obscured by the willow's dangling green fronds. From the safety of his hiding place, Carlisle confessed cryptically, "A man grows accustomed to living in solitude after so many years."

"I understand that," Edward responded, "but a man shouldn't grow _attached _to living that way."

A bitter laugh broke in Carlisle's throat. "Believe me, son. The last thing I want is to go back to living the way I had before I met you and Esme." Just the implications of such a life were enough to make his stomach churn.

"I know that," said Edward. "I'm just trying to piece some things together. You have an awful lot of uncertainties about accepting such a huge change in your life, but I don't want you to doubt yourself on this. Not anymore."

Carlisle just barely allowed himself to peek back over his shoulder. A strong breeze made the willow vines tickle his back, and he released a heavy sigh. The sound of Edward's voice seemed to grow more appealing and sympathetic the longer he went unseen.

As Carlisle thought briefly back to his rushed conversation stirring over the chess board the night before, he realized it had truly been more like a denial, a defiant burst of sudden but short-lived excitement that had allowed him to momentarily forget his deeper concerns about the wedding.

"It's true, the concept of great change makes me feel vulnerable," Carlisle admitted openly. "Every decade or so it would happen. I'd feel that uprooting sensation, the world shifting around me, and I'd feel like I was being left behind." As his fingers twirled longingly around the willow vines, a wry little smile crossed his lips. "To this day I still feel my mind is most at peace with the seventeenth century."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Edward reasoned.

"Perhaps not. But Esme, as understanding and sympathetic as she is, can never fully grasp where I've come from, the things I've gone through."

"You really believe that?" Edward's words were heavy with doubt.

Carlisle rested his head against a curved branch and frowned. "I fear that."

"But you don't know if it's true," Edward argued in a quiet, passionate voice. Vaguely, Carlisle heard him rise to his feet and come closer, but he still couldn't see him through the mess of tangled branches and vines.

"You've told Esme some personal things, Carlisle. Think about everything you've shared with her, and all before you'd even accepted her as your future wife. No one said you had to bare your entire soul to this woman in a few months, or even a whole year. Isn't that why you chose to marry her? You're making a promise to open yourself to her a little bit more each day. So yes, you've only scratched the surface of your past, but over time I think you'll find yourself more and more willing to share the rest of it with her." He paused, waiting for Carlisle to turn around and finally face him. "And maybe one day she _will_ understand where you've come from and what you've gone through. Maybe she'll understand it as completely as I do."

Edward's face had never looked as promising as it did right then, lit by erratic slits of moonlight as the wind blew through the trees.

"Your wisdom astounds me sometimes, Edward," Carlisle said breathlessly.

A tiny smile creased Edward's firm eyes. "I'm not saying all of this to impress you. I want to help you. I owe you a whole damn lot too, you know."

Carlisle's heart warmed with gratefulness.

_It is enough for me to simply see your face every day. And I know Esme feels the same._

Edward's expression was sentimental for a fleeting instant as he read his father's mind.

"I hope that you will stay with us," Carlisle added out loud. The sentence was meant to go on longer, but the words never came out. And so it was left that way, half formed, never fully implied, lingering on the edge of an emotion that passed superfluously between their locked eyes.

Edward looked down at his feet in the water a bit uncomfortably, then after a pause, he murmured, "Carlisle?"

Carlisle reached through the branches and placed a hand on Edward's narrow shoulder. "Hm?"

"I think you should go back to your violin."

* * *

**Thank you all so much for your devotion to this story. I really enjoy writing Carlisle's point of view, especially as we get closer to the wedding. Like Esme, he has his own demons to chase away before the wedding. It's a good thing he's got Edward to help him sort things out. :)**


	40. Striking a Chord

**Striking a Chord**

_Chapter 61 of Stained Glass Soul from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

Edward hadn't needed to suggest that Carlisle return to his beloved violin that night. As long as the instrument was in his house, he was going to find it and play it again and again.

Carlisle walked all the way back to the house in the dark, not bothering to dry his feet off before he strode blindly through the hall into the music room. Edward's piano was tucked into one corner, and Esme's harp in the other, but unlike their instruments, Carlisle's violin was small and less awkward to move from one place to another. If he wanted, he could play it in any part of the room he wished. But just like he loved to write while staring out the window, he preferred to play his violin in the window too.

The mansion's large music room had been well crafted for the task of making music. Carlisle had never really appreciated the decorative atmosphere of the room itself until he'd spent hours upon hours playing his violin there. The walls were angled oddly, and the ceiling was sloped enough that it allowed for a lovely echo of sound waves when a melody was played. The room was filled with deep wine reds and muted coppers and shiny cherry wood. A few paintings hung on the walls, depicting scenes of Venetian waterways and crumbling buildings in Cairo. There were thick velvet curtains around the windows, just like in the study, allowing for privacy when the temptation of music grew too intense to share with the rest of the outside world.

Carlisle's bare feet left wet spots on the red carpet as he made his way to the place he'd left his violin. He sighed happily when he lifted it from its case and rested it on his left shoulder. That shoulder was starting to feel naked without it.

After a few practice scales, he heard Esme's scurrying come to a standstill. He lowered his instrument and smiled out the window as he waited for her footsteps to come down the stairs and into the hall. Sure enough, the creak of the music room door was the next sound he heard.

He acknowledged her entry by slowly turning his head to see her. She stood by the door with her finger on her lip, and a curious glint in her eye. "May I watch you play?" she whispered. The large room swallowed her voice whole.

A little trail of fire trickled down his arms, preparing his muscles for more vigorous exercise. If Esme was going to watch him play, he had to be even more impressive.

He nodded, and she welcomed herself into the dark room, graceful as a painted ballerina.

The shadows slipped around her slender feminine limbs as she walked, like long, sheer black scarves being thrown out from the darkness. She settled in a luxurious chair on the other side of the room, leaving a fair amount of space between them so she could watch from a small distance.

Carlisle tried to forget that Esme was in the room as he rolled up his sleeves and started to play again. But as he suspected, it was very hard to ignore her presence.

Being so aware of her made his arms feel even stronger, and thus more fit to produce sweeter music. It worked to his advantage that Esme was so attentive; she improved his performance without even knowing it.

After a little while he began to feel more comfortable with her eyes on his every move. She was not being critical. Just like when she looked over his painting or his carvings, he could tell she had nothing but adoration in her eyes. He made many mistakes in the midst of his playing, but he heard not one hitch in her breath as they came. He wondered if she'd even heard them.

Slowly but surely, Carlisle fell back under the relentless sea of inspiration. He drowned in the melancholy flow of his own subconscious, and of the melodies he weaved together with his fingers and feelings. Before long he had buried himself in his own glowing nest, a pleasant cocoon of safety and contentment where Esme's gaze was a distant beacon that warmed him without threatening him.

His arm continued to move back and forth, coaxing an endless medley of notes from his heart. On the end of the violin, his tireless fingers flustered the strings, lovingly drawing out the instrument's dulcet cries. Everything but the sound of his music was put out of mind. His body was enslaved by the sounds that echoed back to him, draining all of his strength into forming a song that told a story without words. With those few shivering chords, he felt he could capture the way storm clouds formed on the horizon, the way the lake rippled when he stepped into it, the way gypsy girls rolled their voluptuous hips in a bonfire dance...

It felt indecent to do this in front of a woman.

All at once, Carlisle remembered again that Esme was watching him. While it was true she could not read his thoughts, he still feared she could sense the nature of those thoughts from the way he moved and breathed. One of these days she _would_ be able to tell what he was thinking just by glancing at him.

His eyes opened abruptly, surprised to see a new sun grinning back at him from the window. All night he had played without a break, and Esme still sat in her corner chair, as rapt with attention as she had been nearly five hours ago.

He blushed inside.

"I'm surprised I haven't put you to sleep," he joked as he put his violin back in its case.

Esme shook her head with a smile. "I adored every moment of listening to you play. It was truly a breathtaking performance."

Her compliment made the tension in his shoulder flare up, and he kneaded the muscle down with his fist. "It was far from perfect," he said modestly.

"To me, it _was _perfect," she murmured.

Looking at her smiling made him smile. "I'm honored you think so."

He turned away to fold and tuck his sheet music back into the case. There were nearly ten dozen pages in there, but he'd made it through all of them in one night. He made a mental note to find more sheet music very soon. Maybe Edward would know good places in town for budding musicians to visit.

Esme giggled from across the room, as if she'd read his train of thought. He straightened up in surprise, thinking she must have been laughing at him. "What did I do?"

"Nothing," she said coolly, throwing one slim leg over the other and scooting back against the cushioned armchair. "I was just thinking of something."

Her eyes were sparkling, which meant he wouldn't be able to ignore her cryptic reply for long.

"Tell me?"

"Well..." Her lips curved into a mysterious smirk. "I was just thinking about what the nurses at St. Thomas More Hospital might do when they happen to see a golden ring on Doctor Cullen's finger."

She lightly traced her rose diamond engagement ring, and Carlisle's own finger sizzled where a wedding band would soon be. "They...probably won't notice," he mumbled, even though he knew it was not true.

Esme chuckled in disbelief. "Oh, believe me, Carlisle, they will."

He stared at her questioningly when he noted the uncharacteristic boldness of her tone.

Her cheeks puffed out proudly as she grinned. "I know about the powdered sugar."

Carlisle was certain his face must have been rigid. "Edward told you about that?" he groaned.

Esme nodded emphatically and tried not to laugh out loud. As adorable as her reaction was, Carlisle couldn't help but be a little irritated with his son for sharing this particular incident with his soon-to-be wife.

Out of habit he began to sweep his hands up and down his sleeves to rid himself of any lingering sugar dust. "It's only the younger, immature ones who do it. And it's not as if they do it every day. They only do it once in a while. It's sort of a game to them, I suppose. I just pretend not to notice."

Esme's laughter subsided, but she was still smiling knowingly when she came over to where he stood by the window.

"It's alright, Carlisle," she said, laying her petite palm over his fidgeting hand. "At first it made me angry when Edward told me, but now I just find it all very silly."

He found his relief in her cheerful face, and allowed himself to chuckle a bit as she fiddled with his sleeves. Her gaze eventually dropped to his chest as she began to press down his shirt. "You've had quite a busy night, my dear. No one would ever guess that you had never touched a violin before in your life," she murmured as her fingers tugged his sleeves back down the length of each of his arms in turn. "Listening to you play is heavenly."

He could show her so many more heavenly things if she would only let him...

Carlisle mentally kicked himself at the thought and glanced worriedly at the clock. "I've been so distracted that I've lost track of time." He tried to ignore how soft her hand was on his cheek. "I should be leaving for the hospital soon."

With an almost threatening force, Esme's hands were tight on his collar, holding him in place. "You can't wear this shirt to work, Carlisle. Look at how wrinkled it is now."

He wanted to smile at the disheveled mess he'd made of himself just by playing the violin, but he was careful to hide his reaction from Esme. "I could wear a vest over it," he offered.

"But the sleeves are wrinkled too, see?" Her fingers did a fantastic little dance up the side of his arm and tickled the cradle of his elbow. "That's what happens when you roll them up," she whispered in mock disapproval.

"It looks fine to me," he lied, hoping she would go one step further if properly provoked.

She shook her head. "I'll find you a new shirt from the laundry."

Victory.

Carlisle grinned as soon as Esme turned her back to him. She was out the door in a flash, her footsteps flurrying across the floorboards. He listened to her sifting through the laundry basket in the kitchen, eagerly awaiting his new shirt. He straightened up when he heard her coming back to the study.

"Here, I've found one for you," her breathless voice announced. In her hands she held the shoulders of a mint green work shirt. He reached for the article of clothing, and was surprised to find her a little reluctant to let go of it.

Carlisle flattened the new shirt against his chest and began to undo the buttons down the front of it. A thrill pierced his heart at the thought of Esme watching him change shirts. She wasn't moving yet... Was she going to stay in the room while he did it?

He decided he wouldn't mind it if she did. In fact, he kind of wanted her to stay and watch.

He began to pluck the buttons open faster.

At his change in speed, Esme quickly intervened, "Why don't you just change into that shirt while I go find you a vest to match it?" He looked up in surprise to watch her rush for the door. With her hand on the door jamb, she stopped abruptly and glanced over her shoulder. "Where do you keep your clothes?"

He wanted to laugh at the bashful look on her face. It wasn't as if she were asking him something incredibly intimate, but he couldn't deny it must have felt that way to her.

"In the same room where you first discovered my _Lake Cordial by Moonlight_," he hinted teasingly, hoping to put her at ease.

Mirth lit her beautiful eyes before she disappeared into the hall again. Carlisle shook his head at her lovely antics and sighed as he undid the last button on the green shirt.

Alone in the room, he felt his muscles relax and his breathing even out. He hadn't realized how tense he had been at the prospect of being watched while changing. He didn't know why he was reacting so harshly to the idea – after all, it was just his shirt.

But Esme had never seen him bare-chested before, at least not to his knowledge. It may have been insignificant to anyone else, but to Carlisle, a man's chest was half his body, and just as sacred as the other half. Even now that he was all by himself in his study, he felt that he was being watched keenly by hiding eyes in the shadows as he began to undo the buttons of his wrinkled white shirt.

With each button he undid, he showed more of his skin. Tiny sweeps of cool air touched him, like eager fingers slipping through the fabric. When he reached the last button, he was tentative to draw the sides of his shirt apart and reveal his bareness to the empty room. But he did it.

He rarely looked at his bare skin in the sunlight, but right now it was impossible not to notice the shimmering white expanse of his naked chest. He saw his reflection in the window and was pleasantly surprised to find himself at peace with it. He laid his discarded shirt over the edge of the music stand and placed one palm flat over his bellybutton, riding his breaths.

He suddenly wished Esme would burst back through the door and see him this way – unaware and unprepared – while he was utterly bare from the waist up, with his icy skin twinkling in the morning light. He wanted her to stumble in on him and feel a shock of wonder when she saw his vulnerability.

A soft heat curled in his thighs as he fantasized about her coming into the room, and what might transpire as a result of it.

He took his time putting his new shirt on, slipping each button through its slit with aching slowness... But she didn't come back until he'd finished with the very last one.

More relief than regret filled his body as he saw her enter the room warily, clutching a dark green vest in her hands. He smiled when he realized it was the very same one he would have picked out for himself.

"Oh, good. I was hoping you would pick that one." He opened his hand for it, but she didn't give it to him, so he was again forced to maneuver it out of her grip. He hastily slipped it over his head and tucked it into his trousers.

His fingers were inches away from the buttons beneath his belt. All it would take was a few flicks of one finger, and the sacred lower half of his body could be bare for Esme.

He winced and tried to toss the inappropriate thought from mind. Luckily, something else distracted him.

"Here," Esme suddenly breathed, a comb in her hand. "Hold still for a moment." She came very close to him and stood up on her toes.

Carlisle turned into a complacent statue as Esme's deft and dainty fingers worked to style his hair with the comb. Her touch tickled the skin of his ears, sending a flicker of flowing warmth into his chest. Her eyes were concentrated, yet fond, and the way she touched him was both maternal and romantic.

He could have let that moment last forever.

And how baffling it was to think of the power a woman could have over a man, just for combing his hair.

Too soon, she stood back, silently praising herself for job well done. "Now you can go to work." Her lips skimmed his hard cheek with a smile.

But he wasn't ready to get rid of her just yet. "Walk me to the door."

She was very quick to lead him to the foyer and grab his coat. Her hands gave his arms a small squeeze as he slipped them through his coat sleeves. His hips felt unsteady.

"When I come back later we'll go into town to have your gown fitted," he reminded her.

The glint of worry in her eyes made his heart fall a little. "Are you sure we should go today?"

"If we wait any longer it won't be done in time," he said gently. Her hand floated over her belly, and a slightly ill expression appeared on her face.

Just a few more days, he promised himself then and there. Just a few more days and Esme would be as confident in herself as he was in her.

He stepped forward and claimed her hand, hoping he could claim her fears. "Everything will be fine."

The taste of Esme's lips lingered on his for the rest of the day.

**-}0{-**

The first place Carlisle stopped in town was the Sauvageon Sisters' dress shop. He always enjoyed the vivaciousness of the sisters, but he had to admit they could sometimes be intimidating to visit without proper preparation.

All he wanted was to request a time after closing hours for Esme to come by and get her gown fitted, but he doubted it would all come out so smoothly. It was no secret that the sisters were absurdly fond of him. They would likely be shocked to hear that he was getting married, as would the rest of the town when word got out in time. And if the Sauvageon sisters knew, the entire state might know by the same time tomorrow.

Carlisle gulped as he knocked on the door to the dress shop. As he'd expected, the sisters came rumbling toward the door, stepping on each other's toes to be the first to greet him.

"Doctor! Doctor Cullen!"

He winced as they bounced into him from both sides, forcing him through the tight threshold with eager hands. Their fingers grappled him with impressive force and their eyes were wide and blinking far too much. They reminded him of two hungry puppies who had been waiting all day long to see their owner return with a sack full of bacon in tow.

"We haven't seen you in so long! Mother sends her best! How are you? How is work at the hospital?"

"Fine, thank you! I have—"

"Ooooh, you look as if you got a bit of color, Doctor! Look, Cecile, doesn't he look like he's been getting some sun?"

"Yes, well, the reason I stopped by—"

"By George, he _does!_" Cecile leaned closer to inspect the perfectly winter-white tone of his skin. "Oh, Doctor, you _have _been enjoying the sunshine, haven't you?"

Carlisle shook his head, bemused. "Not hardly. You see, I have been working a lot during the day, which brings me to why I—"

"But you shouldn't spend too much time in that old hospital! If you can take time off, do it! We don't want to see you coming down with a nasty illness when summer is just around the corner!" Both sisters shook their heads vigorously in unison.

"Ladies, please." Carlisle raised his hand in attempt to quiet them before they could interrupt him again.

"By the way, Doctor Cullen, green really_ is _your color."

"Shut your mouth, Paulette! Let the poor man talk."

"Phooey! I was just giving him a compliment."

Carlisle smiled patiently. "And I appreciate it, but I really would like to explain why I've come to see you both today."

"Of course, Doctor! What can we do for you?"

"A very large favor."

"The bigger the better," Cecile said, before sharing a significant smirk with her sister.

Carlisle sighed. "But you both must promise me now that you won't breathe a word of what I'm about to tell you to anyone else in town."

"We promise!" They said giddily not a second after he finished his sentence. They both leaned in intently, their eyes glittering like bulging blue sapphires in the light. Their eager breaths made faint whistling sounds as they awaited a juicy secret.

Carlisle straightened himself up, unable to resist grinning as he announced, "Miss Paulette, Miss Cecile... I am here to ask you to design my fiancée's wedding gown."

Both women's mouths dropped open.

"Oh, this is..._stunning _news!" Paulette burst, her hands clapping together.

"Indeed," Cecile said stiffly, her upper lip twitching. "Stunning."

"Doctor Cullen is getting _married_!" Paulette squealed, her arms raised to the heavens in thanks.

"Again with the shouting, Paulette!" Cecile hushed her younger sister when she saw Carlisle's wince.

"Sorry!" Paulette whispered before repeating jubilantly under her breath, "Doctor Cullen is getting married!"

"I am," Carlisle confirmed, allowing himself a private moment of pride.

"Oh, Cecile, we'll need to get out our best fabrics!" Paulette said excitedly before turning back to Carlisle. "When will we have the pleasure of meeting your sweetheart, Doctor?"

"I was hoping you would be so kind to open your doors for us tonight, after six."

"Tonight!" Paulette bellowed, her eyes like tea saucers. "It would be our _pleasure!_ Wouldn't it, Cecile?"

The elder Sauvageon sister simpered. "Yes. Our pleasure."

Carlisle warily eyed each sister in turn. "Are you sure? I certainly don't want to inconvenience your business..."

"Nonsense! We would do anything to get you in here more often!" Paulette shouted. "And be sure to bring your charming son along too! I'm sure he's grown another foot since we've last seen him!"

Carlisle laughed abruptly. Not many people would refer to Edward as "charming" from the brooding charade he practiced while in town. Even funnier was Paulette's inference that the boy had grown in height since his last visit.

"Of course," Carlisle murmured, still recovering from laughter. "But remember, ladies, not a word outside of this shop."

"Yes, yes, yes! We'll keep our fat mouths sealed!" Paulette hissed. "Oh, I'm just so thrilled for you, Doctor!" She rubbed her hands together and sighed loudly, stars in her eyes. "To think all this time you had a beautiful, secret little _lover _hiding in your shadow!"

Carlisle rubbed the back of his neck bashfully. "Well, it's not exactly like that..."

"It's so deliciously Abelard and Heloise!" Paulette exclaimed, her puffy cheeks like pink bonbons.

"Hmm...No. Not at all."

"This is so _exciting!_"

Cecile chimed in with a forced grin, "I can barely contain myself."

"In that case I'd better be on my way," Carlisle muttered, heading toward the door with Paulette close on his heels.

"So we'll meet her tonight? Here? In _our _shop? This mysterious red rose who's captured the elusive heart of Doctor Carlisle Cullen?"

"Yes, yes," he chuckled, patting the shoulders of the bouncing young lady until she stilled. "I'll be back around seven this evening. How does that sound?"

"Perfect! We'll set up a private fitting all for her!" Paulette reached out for her sister's hand. "Oh, Cecile, isn't this enchanting?"

"Earth-shattering," Cecile said through her teeth.

"Good afternoon then, dears," Carlisle said jovially before rushing out the door. "We'll meet again tonight!"

A high pitched squeal sounded in the shop just after he left, and shortly after, he thought he could hear some vague sobs. But perhaps he was only hearing things.

**-}0{-**

At the hospital, things seemed much brighter. The corridors, as drab as they usually were, seemed to sparkle around him. The air, usually stuffy, felt warm and comfortable. He felt as if he were floating on a cloud, surrounded by a world that was more a dream than reality.

Nothing went wrong. And even if it did go wrong, he didn't feel overwhelmed by it. Nothing was enough to bring him down from his high, because in his heart he knew he had Esme. Carlisle looked at everyone around him in wonder, finally feeling fully accepted by the world for who he was.

Before he met Esme, he would have to suppress his envy when he saw a stranger smiling; he was always assuming they had a better life than he did. Now he didn't have to hide the sadness in his eyes when a fellow doctor boasted about his family and all the time they planned to spend together over the weekend. Now Carlisle had the same kind of life, the same blessings, and the same intense reassurance that everything would be perfect, so long as he had his family.

He was certain people noticed the change in his demeanor. They smiled whenever he happened to glance in their direction, as if his happiness were infectious. They flocked to him in the halls and pressured him to answer cryptic questions about his personal life. "What has you looking so chipper?" they would ask him. He found ways to weave his words around a direct answer. Some part of him still very much enjoyed keeping his engagement a secret.

Let them wonder why he was suddenly so content with life. The wisest ones would know right away that it had to do with a woman.

After his shift at the hospital, Carlisle couldn't stop grinning. He endured the stares of suspicious businessmen, curious children, and swooning women while he walked the streets of town. When he passed by a familiar little flower shop, he stopped inside to greet the owner.

All she needed was one look at his face to guess that he was getting married. She pinched his cheeks and got tears in her eyes, and sobbed that she knew he'd met his true match, even though she had only met him once before. This time she sent him home with five luscious bouquets, instead of just one red rose.

He paid her five times their worth.

Thirty minutes later he burst through the doors to his house with several pounds of flowers in his hands. Esme looked both shocked and impressed. He hoped he would be seeing that particular combination on her face more often once they were married.

He noticed her take a deep breath and savor the sweet floral perfume. "What are all these for?" she queried, eyeing the colorful blooms.

"For those empty vases in the bedroom," he answered. "We can fill them all with these bouquets."

He dropped his armload of flowers onto a nearby table and filled his arms with something more precious. Esme squirmed when he caught her off guard, stealing an abrupt kiss from her plump lips.

"Empty vases?" she managed to murmur when he pulled away.

"Yes. Five of them." He glanced toward the stairs. "On the fireplace mantle. Didn't you notice?"

Her eyebrows crinkled adorably as she rubbed her forehead. "I did notice the vases. I just never thought to put flowers in them."

He laughed gently before pulling her closer, running his fingers through her irresistible curls. He cupped the back of her neck with his hands and kissed her deeply, enjoying every little moment of their closeness after a long day apart. "I missed you today," he sighed.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "I missed you too. I kept thinking about tonight."

The sudden reminder prompted Carlisle to break their embrace. "You're already dressed," he remarked, noting the elegant blue dress, jacket, and shoes she wore. "We can go right now."

"Now?" She pouted at the cloudy sky out the window, seeing no excuse to keep inside.

"I arranged everything this morning," Carlisle explained, hoping his excitement would infect her the way it usually did. "They know to expect us at the dress shop at seven o'clock. No one else will be there because they're closed after six."

He wished Esme would take comfort in the idea of being the only customer in the shop that night, but she still looked wary about the situation.

"I'll be with you the entire time, darling," he told her. So she complied.

By the time they reached the street that led to the dress shop, Esme's hands were shaking so much that Carlisle could barely keep his grip on them.

Edward wasn't helping. "Be warned. There's a reason their last name actually means 'savage'..."

Carlisle managed to discourage the boy from frightening Esme any more than he already had. The sisters were more a threat to Edward than they were to Esme. From the way they'd acted that morning, Carlisle had gathered that they were genuinely anxious to meet his 'sweetheart.'

He smiled proudly as he clasped Esme's fingers and guided her up the sidewalk. She didn't resist him this time. They exchanged brief words of comfort before they made to enter the shop.

"Will you stay here in case I need to leave?" Esme asked, her eyes trained on the cross around his neck. He smiled to himself as he felt her shaky fingers trace the golden chain.

He assured her for the hundredth time of his faith in her, and this time it seemed to brighten the hope in her eyes. Carlisle bent down and kissed his nervous fiancée one final time before escorting her into the dress shop.

He braced himself for an ambush, having learned his lesson earlier that morning. But he breathed a sigh of relief when no one attacked him in the threshold. The sisters lingered in the back room long enough to give his family time to take in the decor of the bright pink entry room. Strings of white crepe roses dangled from the ceiling tiles, brushing past his head whenever he took a step. Clearly they hadn't kept tall people in mind when decorating the room. Edward seemed to be having the same problem.

The boy shot his father an irritated glance.

_I know you don't want to be here, son. Please just be patient for Esme's sake, _Carlisle said through his thoughts before clearing his throat to cue the sisters' entrance.

"Doctor Cullen!" they shouted, bustling through the back doors with their arms outspread in welcome. From their reaction to his presence, one would think he was the president of the United States.

"Good evening, ladies."

"It's a pleasure to see you again – twice in one day!" Paulette shouted happily. "And young Edward, too! How delightful!"

Carlisle could practically feel the annoyance radiating from his son.

"Is that _your _machine out there, Doctor Cullen?" Cecile suddenly demanded, her head pressed against the window as she eyed his automobile on the side of the road. "Spunky sheepdogs! Is it ever so fine!"

Carlisle cast Edward an uncomfortable glance. "Please, ladies, call me Carlisle."

He was rewarded with the usual response of robust, nonsensical laughter. Naturally, he was still addressed formally when Paulette next spoke. "So, Doctor Cullen, how was your drive?"

"Fine, thank you. And I must thank you both again for agreeing to see us after store hours," he said with a polite smile. "I do work late shifts from time to time, and your accommodations are most appreciated."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, Doctor! We're _delighted _to service you in any way we can."

Edward's very un-subtle snort gave Carlisle an idea of the true meaning behind her words.

As he stepped forward into the room, Carlisle became more aware of Esme's distance. She was keeping close to the door, probably more out of concern for her control than out of shyness. To relieve some of the awkwardness of the moment, he reached back for her to take his hand.

"In that case, I'd like to introduce my fiancée, Esme."

Her fingers wriggled nervously against his palm as he gently pulled her forward so the sisters could meet her. "Esme, meet Miss Cecile and Miss Paulette." He squeezed her hand for reassurance.

"How do you do?" she said meekly. He half-expected her to accidentally curtsy.

"My...isn't she a pretty one?" Cecile remarked, eyeing Esme's body up and down. Carlisle felt a brief curdling of defense in his chest.

"It won't take much work from us to make _her_ look like an angel on your wedding day, Doctor," Paulette said confidently.

The obviousness of Esme's beauty had never been called into question in Carlisle's mind, but seeing her for the first time face to face with these entirely unspectacular human women elevated her all the more from his perspective.

Esme caught his eye at exactly the right moment, and his heart shivered with glee as they exchanged shy smiles.

"Nevertheless, I'm happy to leave a handsome sum for your efforts," Carlisle mentioned to the sisters, fingering his pocket full of cash for good measure.

He didn't miss Cecile's clever muttering from across the room. "Handsome indeed."

By then, Edward had had enough. "Well then, we'll just let you two work your 'magic,'" he said sarcastically, grabbing hold of Carlisle's arm and dragging him toward the door.

_I promised Esme I would stay here until she was finished, son. _

Edward's eyes stared longingly outside, but he complied by stuffing himself into one of the fluffy pink armchairs by the window.

Carlisle turned to watch his fiancée being escorted into the fitting room. She was very nervous to be on her own; he could tell by the way she glanced quickly over her shoulder at him, a coloring of desperation in her pretty eyes. He smiled encouragingly at her, hoping she could see how genuine his confidence in her control was.

"An angel she will be, Doctor Cullen, you can bet your life on it!" Paulette giggled before disappearing behind the back room door.

_An angel she already is,_ Carlisle thought contentedly to himself.

"You're not even the littlest bit worried about her back there?" Edward whispered dubiously after the doors were tightly sealed.

"Should I be?" Carlisle challenged, one eyebrow raised as he turned to his son.

"No," Edward said after a thoughtful pause. "She's barely thinking about her thirst."

Carlisle smiled rather smugly. "I know her better than you think I do, Edward."

Edward shrugged in acceptance and laid his head back comfortably on his cushioned chair, closing his eyes. It was obvious that he was trying to tune out the thoughts of the women in the back room.

Carlisle knew it was rude to eavesdrop, but he couldn't help his curiosity when it came to the intriguing female conversation occurring right behind the walls. He made a valiant effort to ignore their chit chat for as long as he could, but there was only so much time one could spend reciting the Preamble to the Constitution in one's head.

Enough words had somehow snuck past his distracted recitations that he was able to piece together a bit of what was happening behind the fitting room door. By the time Esme had been asked to remove her dress, he was more than alert.

The thought that she was in her undergarments just behind that door made Carlisle incredibly restless. Suddenly he was fantasizing ways to drill a tiny hole in the wall so that he could spy on the scene behind it without getting caught. He felt enough like a voyeur just listening to the sounds of fabric rubbing against skin...

He leaned against the window and burrowed his forehead in one hand.

From the few words he allowed himself to hear, Carlisle gathered that Esme was still very shy around the sisters when it came to removing her clothes. He privately worried that her shyness might prove to be a problem for him in the near future, should he ever convince her to undress herself in front of him. Even more terrifying was the thought that _he _might be even more shy when it came time to remove his own clothes in front of _her. _

Edward must have been having a field day listening to every thought of the all the individuals in this building.

It was then that Carlisle realized he was now pacing anxiously back and forth in the center of the room. With every few steps he took, another flowery ornament would brush his head. There were too many silly garlands hanging from the ceiling in this place.

Edward's breathing sounded strained, either from trying not to laugh or from the stress he sensed in his father

Carlisle tried to focus and think about something besides his wedding night for a change. But knowing that Esme was being prodded with pins and tangled with measuring tape in the next room over made that an impossible task.

His dead heart all but fluttered when he overheard her measurements. Carlisle was enough of a mathematician to understand what those three two-digit numbers meant for a woman's figure. Not that he couldn't tell Esme had a magnificent figure already, just from glancing at her in those form fitting dresses she sometimes wore.

That was the problem with women's dresses, Carlisle thought. They always looked so boxy and conservative on the hanger, but once they were being worn by a woman, they clung to her body like condensation to a cold, curvy glass of water.

"I must say, you and Doctor Cullen do make a fine couple," he heard one of the sisters say.

The surprising remark made his head jerk in the direction of the fitting room. Even Edward's eyes were halfway open now, a sure sign of interest – even if he was trying to hide it.

Carlisle's heart glowed when he heard Esme's small voice murmuring _thank you _to the compliment.

He heard a vague smattering of praise directed toward himself, but he was unconcerned with it. He had been awakened to a new perspective on his relationship with Esme – that of the third party public. When he walked into town now, he would do so with a female partner on his arm. When he was forced to attend conferences and dinner parties, he would arrive with a stunning woman in a glittering cocktail dress, and all the other men in attendance would envy him for it. He would be scrutinized all the more for having a wife of his own, one who matched him in grace and oddities, and he was not dreading it so much as looking forward to it.

"...you know what they say about doctors and their 'bedside' manner..."

Carlisle nearly choked when he heard the blunt turn the women's conversation had taken.

Edward sniffed indifferently. "Like we haven't heard _that _comment before," he muttered to no one in particular.

Carlisle reluctantly continued half-listening to the ruckus in the back room. Even with the thick wall separating them, he could sense Esme's embarrassment as keenly as if it were his own. Of course, knowing he was the prime subject of their conversation made him just as hot beneath the collar.

_Good Lord, what are they telling her back there?_ Carlisle wondered.

"It was your idea to come here, Carlisle," Edward reminded, rising from his seat. "As for me, I've heard just about enough as I can take. I'll be heading out now, if you don't mind."

"Where are you going?" Carlisle whispered before Edward could reach the door, surprised to hear the slight panic in his own voice.

"I don't know. Maybe I'll buy some shoes for Esme's gown," Edward said, fishing through his pockets for cash.

Carlisle smiled at the idea, promptly unbuttoned his wallet, and handed his son a wad of bills. "Here."

"I still have some of my own money from the deliveries I made for Mr. Alvadi," Edward protested even as his pockets turned out meager earnings.

"It's alright, son. Take mine," Carlisle insisted gently, aware that Edward was still reluctant to show dependence on him. "Save your own for something _you_ want."

"But—"

"I know you'll find a pair she will love."

Edward accepted the money with a loving smirk. "Are you sure you'll survive in here without me?"

"If Esme and I don't make it home tonight, you'll know where to look for us."

Carlisle felt a strong sense of fatherly pride as he watched Edward pocket his money, a genuine smile on his face. "Thanks."

Carlisle's hand grazed Edward's shoulder just before he hurried off into the street. The door closed behind him, and suddenly the room seemed much emptier despite the excessive floral clutter.

Carlisle smiled to himself as he watched his son continue up the sidewalk, perfectly oblivious to the flock of flushing schoolgirls who eyed him from across the street. Since he'd found a lifelong partner of his own, Carlisle now felt a peculiar eagerness to find his son a soul mate as well. Esme had been well worth waiting for, but Carlisle hated to think that Edward might have to pine for three more centuries until he found the woman he would call his wife.

No man deserved to endure that kind of heartache, especially not Edward. It was hard to tell if the boy was truly as unconcerned with matters of love as he claimed to be, or if it was all an act to protect himself from questions that might threaten his stubborn pride.

Carlisle had to accept the fact that he might never know any more about Edward's dreams for finding love. But as he watched the group of whispering young schoolgirls gaze longingly after his son, Carlisle felt the seed of a secret scheme being bedded in his mind. If he could do anything to rush along the process for his son to find a mate, he would. Even if Edward refused to be involved.

**-}0{-**

The day after Esme's fitting, Carlisle endured the longest shift at the hospital he'd ever had to work. All throughout the day he was distracted by the littlest things, slow to respond to people when they asked him questions, and frustratingly nervous for reasons he did not understand.

At random moments he found himself counting in his head the times he and Esme had kissed since they left the dress shop the night before. It was the first thing he had done when she came out of the back room, with both Sauvageon sisters still clutching her arms. Esme had looked as if she couldn't stand on her own, but her face had been positively glowing with joy. Unable to resist her innocent radiance, Carlisle had kissed her thoroughly right then and there, not caring that a pair of shocked seamstresses stood watching the entire display.

He'd kissed Esme again when they'd gotten to the car that evening – on her cheek, but he still counted it.

Then he'd kissed her when they arrived home, while Edward was still out looking for Esme's wedding shoes. It had been dark in the foyer, and kissing her had just seemed the natural thing to do in the absense of light.

Then there were the three dozen or so kisses they'd shared on the roof of the house last night. Carlisle had talked to Esme about her progress, how much she'd impressed him with her self control when she was in town that day, and how confident he was that she would have no problems traveling between states in a few more months. He didn't quite recall how speaking had turned into kissing, but he was fairly sure it had something to do with the moonlight and the way he could see the sky full of stars in Esme's eyes when she looked at him.

It was as if time had jolted him back into the present, taunting him with feverish images of the recent past. He still felt a stirring in his chest when he thought of those long, lazy rooftop kisses. He still wanted to drug all of his patients into a blissful coma and run home when he thought of Esme waiting for him. Such selfish thoughts had once made him hate himself, but now they did not faze him. He knew the cure was coming, slowly but surely. His happy agony would end, one evening when Esme laid herself bare for him. All he had to do was wait patiently...

But waiting was so damn hard.

The hours dragged by slower and slower each day they came closer to being married. It was bad enough watching the clocks in his house, but at the hospital, the clocks went three times as slow.

It had been about thirteen hours that Carlisle was parted from Esme, but it felt like thirteen days. He remembered the blizzard of last winter, and how terrible it had been for them to be apart. He returned home that evening with a feeling of victorious reunion quite similar to the one he'd had when there was still snow on the ground. Now there were fronds of ivy hanging where there had once been icicles on the porch. Carlisle brushed them aside and pushed open the door to his home.

The first thing he did was remove his shoes, then his coat. In the same instant he dropped his bag on the ground, Esme appeared before him in a flash.

There was no time for kissing now. He reached out and clutched her soft arm, tugging her to his body. "Will you hunt with me?"

She nodded in earnest. "Let me change my clothes."

Her eyes were a shade darker when she came back downstairs. More of her legs showed because she had put on a shorter, more flowy skirt. The deep plum violet color of it made her pearly white skin seem to shine. Her hair had been swirled expertly into an elaborate knot behind her head, double tied with a ribbon to hold it in place.

Carlisle bolted out the door before he could think too much about her altered appearance. But as he ran beside her through the fragrant forest, he kept noticing the way that purple skirt almost reached the tops of her thighs when she leapt over rocks and logs. He kept watching the way strands of her hair slipped loose from that cute little knot she had tied on the back of her neck.

Everything about Esme made him thirstier.

He may have accidentally confessed this out loud to her at some point during their frantic run.

_Why so frantic? _He asked himself silently in his mind. _What are you running from? What are you running to?_

The answer came to him in a wave of euphoric scent. He attacked a strong buck, pulling it down by its massive antlers and snapping its neck in one swoop. Esme's small body flung forward in a rage of hunger, her dainty legs like silky white scissors, latching onto either side of the animal as it hit the ground. A rough grunt sounded through the clearing, but Carlisle was unsure of whether it came from the buck or from his own throat.

Esme lunged for the buck's fat hind legs, eager to drink her fill. Carlisle claimed the animal's neck for his own, content enough to share with his partner although he was sure he could have drained the monstrous beast all on his own. Thirst rarely felt like a burden to Carlisle, but when Esme was around it seemed to worsen when he was abstaining.

He listened to the suckling, teething sounds of Esme's mouth as she drank the blood from the animal's legs. In the back of his mind he imagined her making those same noises while sucking _his _legs. Every so often she would emit a satisfied little sigh, and she would pull the animal's body closer to her, causing Carlisle to lose track of the artery he was drinking from. As adorable as her possessiveness was, he was beginning to consider it a disturbance. Luckily, Esme drained her half of the animal much quicker than he was able to. When she backed away to give him more space, he gladly took advantage of it.

He ran a finger over the animal's thick neck and located the artery he had gouged before. The blood spilled freely into his mouth, hot and fast, the way sunlight spills from behind a cloud when it breaks. For so long Carlisle believed nothing could compare with the sensation of quenching his physical thirst, but Lord, now he knew better. There were many things more satisfying yet to be had.

Esme was one of them.

He could sense her eyes on him. She was like a beautiful vulture spying on a slowly dying corpse. Her attention, as always, caused strange changes in his behavior. He suddenly wanted to drink with more force, to show off the strength of his tongue. He stopped censoring the sounds he made as he drank; instead he let them flow through him as they came. After a minute or so of vigorous drinking and unabashed groans, Carlisle raised his head slightly to peek at Esme's face.

There were a few drops of blood on her collar, and a faint pink smear on her chin. She had very rosy cheeks, and a lustful shimmer in her round amber eyes. The sight of her face made his thirst peak again.

The second time he drank, his body was more tense. The buck was almost fully drained of its blood... but Carlisle refused to stop until he'd had every last drop.

His hands hugged the belly of the buck in desperation, as if more pressure would squeeze the remaining blood out faster. His breath followed a rough, rigid pattern. That pattern was disrupted by the timid touch of five gentle fingers on the back of his head. Esme's hand was in his hair.

He was startled by how good it felt.

A shudder shook his body, turning his bones to jelly. Esme's hand traveled sluggishly down his back, brushing briefly over his hip before she removed her touch entirely. At the same moment, he discovered he had sucked the animal dry.

Almost guiltily, he let the animal fall with a thud on the forest floor, backing away from it slightly as if he were a criminal contemplating his crime. He inspected the palms of his hands in fascination, wondering how, after years of never spilling a drop of blood while he hunted, he had managed to get his hands completely coated in the stuff.

But the truly fascinating bit was yet to come.

Carlisle was suddenly aware of the comforting crunch of dead leaves as Esme knelt down on the ground beside him. She reached for his hand, and he started to smile, supposing his messiness didn't deter her from initiating physical contact when she craved it.

Apparently she was craving something more than that.

Carlisle's jaw dropped as Esme bowed her head and stretched out her small pink tongue to touch the inside of his wrist. In one long stroke she cleared a path of white through the redness, withdrawing only slightly when she reached the very end of his middle finger. Carlisle was unable to move a muscle as he watched the titillating scene, dreadfully sensitive to the wanton wetness of her gentle tongue as she lapped the blood from his palm.

There was no hint of greed in her eyes when she stared up at him, but a look of worship.

Carlisle reeled, unable to breathe properly. His neck stiffened as he attempted to talk in a normal voice. "You're still thirsty."

Her lashes fluttered as she slipped her lips around his finger, pulling it further into her mouth to clean away the remaining blood. A blistering streak of intense pleasure shot through his chest. His eyes became bleary and out of focus as his finger burned inside her tight mouth. The little movements of her tongue drove him to the brink of insanity.

Finally, she released him, her eyes brightly dilated, like liquid coal. He blinked back at her, stunned, before staring at the finger she had just sucked clean. Her venom still glistened on the tip of his finger, holding its tantalizing warmth.

"I'm sorry," she abruptly gasped, her eyes sparkling with shame and awareness, her hand clutching the base of her throat.

As strongly as he wished to ask her why she had done it, he resisted in favor of making the assumption himself. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, after all.

"I want you to drink some more," he insisted, starting to rise to his feet. Esme teetered cautiously where she crouched on the ground, her skirt fluttering around her knees. She stared at him as if he had just descended from the sky on a cloud.

He was starting to wonder if it were just her thirst making her act this way. If that were true, he would have to be sure she wasn't fully quenched before their wedding night...

_Boorish cad! _

It had been a while since he'd used such language with his alter-ego. The heat of Esme's stare must have been getting to him.

The second he managed to stand upright, his body was slammed back into the ground.

Two eager hands were clutching his knees, two rows of teeth were scraping his lips, and two supple breasts were pressed against his chest. He should have foreseen this coming – or something like it – but the sad truth was, he hadn't.

Esme straddled him with shocking force, her pretty purple skirt splayed out like a bell flower over her svelte thighs. Her neatly knotted hair was now all out of place, falling into her face in long, uneven spirals as she kissed him violently, over and over and over again.

Her breathing accelerated rapidly as she continued pulsing against him, like a young lady experiencing the thrill of riding a horse for the very first time. Carlisle let her pin him down with all her might, resisting nothing she imposed on him. She hurt him in the most exquisite ways...and each way was more wrong than the last.

He tried to speak to her, to bring her back to reality with mere words, but they weren't enough. She was lost to her desires, and she was intent on making sure he shared her victimization.

With her feral panting flooding his ears and her thighs clamped unforgivingly around his hips, Carlisle quickly lost control. All thoughts of self-suppression scattered blissfully over his comfortable dirt bed. A flaming beast was clawing from behind his loins, desperate to break free and consume the luscious woman above him.

Still, he tried in vain to combat the temptation; tried to ignore the sweet song of release taunting his ears. He felt the prickling protrusion, the sharp blades of an ardent fire slicing his sensitive skin. He sensed deep down, a cruel tension, as if someone had roped his genitals to his lap and forbid him to become aroused. But as fate would have it, arousal pierced him with its infamously flawless precision, tugging his flesh to a hardened point within his pants.

For the first time ever, a brilliant flicker of boldness rippled through him when he considered his trap. Some part of him _wanted _Esme to feel what she did to him. He wanted to see the thrill in her eyes when she felt his diamond-hard desire for her, weeping tears of formidable fullness.

His soul seethed in frustration, fueling every muscle in his body with a burst of stunning strength. Impossible though it was, this mysterious burst of strength was enough to counter that of his feisty newborn fiancée.

His hips shot up as if he'd accidentally sat on a hot plate of metal. He retaliated Esme's advances with a punishing force, striking up against her like a hammer striking a nail in reverse. In one swift thrust, he had torn the ropes that bound him, snapping them straight across.

_"Inisde!"_ his body screamed at him, fists pounding against the walls of a familiar prison, "_Get inside of her!"_

At the very moment his body shrieked for mercy, Esme lunged backward to protect herself. Her hands came down to guard her lap as she attempted to flatten the flowing fabric of her unruly purple skirt. She looked terrified, and more than that, she looked embarrassed.

The fires of his arousal were snuffed swiftly out, as if an angry drover had come up behind him and aimed a stock-whip right between his legs.

Carlisle stared cautiously at his siren, allowing time for the stinging to cool before he straightened up to sit across from her, chest still heaving. He captured the buckle of his belt with his right hand, holding it tightly in place so it wouldn't spontaneously melt from the heat brewing just beneath it.

Esme looked her own body up and down in disbelief, then put up both her hands in front of her, palms flat as if pushing against an invisible wall. "I didn't mean to—" she stuttered.

His heart shattered to pieces. The sight of her looking so alarmed and so terrified over what she had done to him was... utterly beautiful.

For some reason, they both seemed equally shocked by what had just transpired on this lush forest floor. In truth, it was a bit like taking a torch into the woods in midsummer, then acting surprised when a fire started. Neither of them had seen it coming, yet it was the most predictable thing that could have happened when they'd agreed to go hunting together the day before their wedding.

Unthinkingly, Carlisle extended his left hand to Esme, and was immensely relieved when she took it. She watched his fingers close in around hers and looked as if she were seconds away from breaking into a sobbing fit. "Carlisle, I swear I didn't—"

He stopped her before she could continue and offered her an excuse for her behavior. "You're just very thirsty."

Their eyes met sharply in the dim forest shadows.

"I think it is much more than that." Her voice rustled like satin.

Carlisle began to beg. "No... Esme, please. Oh, please..." He couldn't bear to look into her eyes any longer. "You don't know how difficult this is for me."

She tightened her fingers on his hand and forced him to look up at her. "I think I know."

He shook his head, his voice grave. "You do not know." As he said this, Esme's pupils dilated steadily, like the ever-expanding edges of the universe. "And you must never know. A woman should not hear such things from the man who is about to become her husband."

He heard her strangled little gasp before it was carried away by a warm wind. Bravely, she bowed her head closer to his, her eyes black, bold, and boiling. "But one day she _will _hear those things."

A fantastic shiver of pure want slipped through his tense body. "She will," he whispered hoarsely back to her in the darkness. "She _shouldn't_, even then...but she will." His fingers grazed her cheek, quivering like the strings of his violin.

As terrifying a promise as this was, Carlisle knew he would make it true one day. One day long after his wedding night... One day when the world was tired of spinning and the sun set on the other side of the sky...

"We can't speak like this," Esme pleaded, her black eyes swimming with the silhouettes of a thousand erotic fantasies.

Carlisle's head tipped closer, his eyes eager to share in the wonderful, forbidden things Esme's hid from him. "Every word I speak is a promise," he said beneath his breath.

"I know," she cried softly, her hand shaking as she clutched him. "That is exactly why you must...stop...speaking. I can't bear it anymore."

Neither could he.

Carlisle encased Esme's hand between both of his, relishing the cold pinch of her diamond engagement ring against his palm.

She found his eyes again, her divine red lips loose and tremulous from the effects of his touch. He saw the sheer devotion in her expression – that she was willing to do anything for him, even on the cusp of her breaking point.

In twenty-four hours, this woman would be his wife.

"One more day," he murmured with certainty. "That is my final promise."

**-}o{-**

"All day long I've been wanting this," Carlisle groaned into Esme's neck. It was minutes after they finished the longest hunt of their lives, and the sun was ducking lower and lower in the sky, sensing that the lovers wanted some time to themselves.

Naturally they couldn't make it home without locking themselves together by their mouths. To save time, Carlisle had scooped Esme up into his arms and began carrying her back to the house, kissing her as he walked.

"I dream about doing this when I'm not near you," he whispered raggedly while gently tugging her lower lip with his teeth. "You're all I think about."

Esme wasn't able to respond to much of what he was saying. He supposed she found it challenging to find the right words when his tongue was there to steal them out of her mouth before she had a chance to speak them.

She preferred weaving her fingers through his hair. Incessantly.

By the time Carlisle made it home, his hair was sticking up in all directions, looking as if he'd spent all day on the windy coast. He smiled at his reflection in the hall mirror.

When he set Esme down on her own two feet, she protested with a whine. That made him smile even more.

"I'm so full," she moaned, rubbing her belly. "You made me drink too much, Carlisle."

Carlisle chuckled to himself, imagining that if a human were listening to their conversation, they would think Esme was referring to wine.

"You needed it. You'll be happy you did it when tomorrow comes."

The word 'tomorrow' stuck like a seductive note in both their ears. They caught each other's gazes at the same time and shared an intimate look of wonder.

Esme twisted her fingers together and glanced shyly toward the doors of the music room. "Will you play some more violin for me?"

He laughed softly at her sweet request and patted down her disheveled curls. "I'd love to. Why don't we go change first, darling, then meet back down here?"

Esme looked down in embarrassment at her rumpled clothes. No matter how much he had grown to like that purple skirt this evening, Carlisle wanted it as far away from him as possible or else his fingers would be too busy ripping it to shreds to play the violin.

Esme consented and went with him upstairs. He walked by her side now, not leading her through the hallway the way he used to. There was a time when Esme would always follow him, as if he were the unspoken leader who dictated every step she took. Now he held her hand and stepped forward only when she did. He kept her hand firmly in his until they reached the door of the master bedroom. Only then did he reluctantly let go so he could open the door.

He pushed down on the handle and it swung open, offering him a brief view of the tempting interior. One more night stood between him and this intensely frustrating room, yet he still felt a strong desire to claim it right now.

A vision of burning blue taunted him before he looked away, occupying his eyes instead with Esme's smile. She slipped past him into the bedroom, a mocking glimmer in her eye as she purposefully brushed his chest with her elbow in passing. He closed the door gently and tucked his hands into his pockets before he could try to go in after her.

He listened to her rummaging through her armoire for a few seconds before he went to put on his own change of clothes. He dressed swiftly, picking up the first clean shirt and first matching pair of trousers he touched, like most men do. As he stood half-naked in his quiet bedroom, an intriguing thought passed through Carlisle's head. A thought that the next time he changed into fresh clothes, he would have someone watching him.

He would have to get used to doing many private things in front of Esme. Changing clothes was only the tip of a very massive iceberg. He would probably always have to paint in front of Esme, and carve in front of Esme. And read and write and...bathe in front of Esme. Foolishly he feared there might be no way to salvage his rights to privacy once he was a married man. Esme would want to be with him every second of the day, at least for the first few weeks or so. He would never deny her that, but what if the closeness became too much for him?

Carlisle slammed his drawer shut and forcefully tucked in his new shirt. Why would such a thought even come to mind? Since when did he start to worry about spending _too _much time with Esme?

His hands slowed as he realized perhaps not all concerns about marriage were predictable. There were some things – many things – he would have to wait to discuss with Esme _after _they were married. Open and honest communication was what a good marriage was all about.

Wanting occasional moments of privacy did not mean he wanted to go back to being lonely.

Carlisle managed to settle himself with that thought before leaving his room to find Esme. Unsurprisingly, she was still humming head-first in her bottom drawer when he checked up on her. Women really did take too long getting dressed.

But then again, there must have been a reason why she always looked so incredible.

After a little while, she met him in the music room, looking ravishing in a fitted green dress and bare feet. He performed several songs for her on the violin, experimenting with the effects of "emotional improvisation."

Judging from the way the rest of the evening panned out, the effects were more than favorable.

At least they started out that way.

Things changed when they migrated to his study.

He shouldn't have let her in there. Now her scent would be all over the room for the rest of the night. He didn't think it would be a problem until a few hours after midnight. That was when the rain started.

The sound of the falling rain aroused him greatly. He didn't know why. It made him think of jungles and forests and a man's drive to be wild in nature. It didn't help at all when Esme insisted that he read her a book about jungle life. To make matters worse she had picked a book with detailed color pictures in it.

She cuddled up in his lap beside the window and listened to him recite paragraph after paragraph about the habitats of various reptiles and primates while he tried not to brush against her too enthusiastically whenever he shifted position behind her.

He was paying half his attention to his conversation with Esme while expending the other half of his energy fantasizing about hunting down jaguars and tigers in the rainforest. He wondered what their blood would taste like. He wondered if Esme would decide female wardrobe rituals were not so important if she were trapped in the Amazon with him. In fact, he wondered if she would shun clothing altogether in that case.

She had asked him to take her to Brazil one day...

"I'm so excited about tomorrow," she whispered suddenly, pulling him out of the daydream.

"So am I," he started to whisper back, before he was interrupted by Esme's request to read her a fairytale.

She shoved a thick pink book into his hands and nestled her head on his chest again, tapping her fingers impatiently on his stomach.

He winced out of her sight and obediently began with the line, "_Once upon a time..."_

It was all a quiet disaster from there.

They discussed the story after he finished reading it, and everything they said, no matter how chaste the words, sounded like something completely _un_chaste.

After just a few minutes of discussion, he was more than aware that Esme felt the same discomfort with speaking as he did. Nothing was hidden in their eyes anymore. They knew each other too well. They wanted to cling to each other and throw themselves into that unspoken fire that burned high in the corner of the room. It was why they looked at each other as if they had between them a huge and marvelous present that they both feared to open; all they would do was stare at the wrapping and the bow.

Because they could not open the present yet, Carlisle sent Esme upstairs. She didn't fight him. She looked slightly sad, but she didn't fight him.

He still couldn't entirely ignore her when she was just one floor above him, but the distance helped at least a little bit. His mind cleared slightly, he was able to settle his heart down for a while, just savoring the ache of being alone.

He wrote a letter to Carmen and Eleazar, thanking them for inspiring him to finally work up the courage and ask Esme to marry him. He invited them to come visit again after the summer was over, and to bring the whole family this time, Edward's discomfort be damned.

But once he finished writing the letter, Carlisle's mind went right back to that very bad, very beautiful place. That place where only he and Esme existed, and nothing but the will of his heart made sense.

He could not keep denying the existence of that terrible, taunting list in his head. That endless list of things he wanted to do to her; things he wasn't entirely sure were possible, and things he most certainly would never attempt on his wedding night. He tried to mentally burn this list, but being that it was already engraved into his mind and perfectly safe from the wrath of a candle flame, he was cursed to have it stuck in his head forever.

There were things he had not dared to mention in his love letters to Esme, things he immediately shunned from his mind the second he thought of them. Things he even supposed God would deem unholy. But these were all things that Carlisle _wanted. _And the idea that they were all too taboo to even think about in detail made him all the more desperate for them.

He was a quiet, mild, peaceful man on the outside. But on the inside, he was suppressing a dark, hot appetite. Like wine, his desires had grown more potent over the ages. After he was married, he would be free to travel deep into the cellar and uncork the bottle...

But would Esme be willing to drink it?

His belly flipped with little rollicking convulsions of delight when he thought about everything that would happen once their rings were secured to their fingers.

Esme was innocent, but she was not without experience. She was not seasoned as a lover, but she was entirely aware of what marriage entailed. In a gruesome way, it was starting to bother him that she was always so sweet, so maternal, so loving and kind. Only because he supposed she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Because on the outside, Carlisle was timid and gentle and compassionate and religious. Esme would be expecting _that _man in her bedroom. She could still have that man, of course. She could take comfort in his soft-spoken prose, and she could reciprocate his chaste kisses, and she could smile at his bashfulness when he was unbuttoning himself.

But Esme would have to be willing to love a very different man once the buttons were all undone. She would have to love and accept a man whose cravings had grown indecent after centuries of neglect. A man whose intense self-control would inevitably crumble when confronted with sexual intimacy. A man who had lived long enough to imagine a thousand and one ways to join himself to a woman, and would be wanting to challenge the limits of his imagination now that he had a woman to claim as his own.

Carlisle had offered Esme glimpses of this man before, but he was always exceedingly cautious when doing so. He knew that too much of the truth would frighten her. But if he offered the truth in small amounts day by day, like a powerful medicine, it would ultimately heal her in time.

He had to believe that his hidden intensity was a _good _thing. He had to have faith that he had developed these inappropriately passionate desires for a reason. None of it made sense if Esme were _truly _as innocent as she appeared. She _had _to be hiding some things, just like he was. She _had _to have a list of her own that she wanted to burn in the back of her mind.

How fervently Carlisle wanted to see _her _list.

Esme had feared the bruises her former husband had left on her body, but would she fear the beautiful bruises her new husband wanted so desperately to leave on her soul?

Carlisle wondered if it was terrible that he _wanted_ Esme to be astonished at his behavior when he took her to bed. He wanted to see her doe-like eyes widened in bewilderment, and her petite body petrified with pleasure, and her lips spilling an endless string of gasps as he showed her what her benevolent childhood doctor was really capable of.

He wanted to change the way she thought of him, and make her second-guess his flawless control. He wanted her to see that he could love a woman like a wild savage. He wanted to show her all the reasons why he could be so rough with his hands when he was carving, and how he could be so gentle when he was making paper flowers, and why he breathed so hard when he was playing his violin, and why his fingers sometimes trembled when he was painting.

Now that her first year as a vampire had reached its end, he wanted to prove to her that he was the stronger one. That now, _he _was the one who was capable of hurting her, crushing her, breaking her apart. He wanted to dominate her, make her surrender to him in every way possible... and then he wanted her to do the same to him.

He realized that he wanted far too much for one night.

He worried that he would be overwhelmed when the time came. That once his clothes were strewn all over that blue carpet, he would lose his sanity and go utterly mad. Would he have no time to savor the wonders of each moment because he was so eager to experience them all at once? After all these years he would finally have made his way into the treasure cave he'd been searching for since before he could remember. The last thing he wanted to do once he got inside was rush around madly in the darkness scooping up every last gemstone, only to leave the cave with his arms so full he could barely carry all of the treasures he'd collected.

He wanted instead to savor his journey into the darkness. He wanted to keep his eyes peeled for those little jewels that were less vibrant and less easy to spot than the larger, more gaudy ones. He wanted to leave the cave with only a handful at a time, so that he could return many times afterward and always have something new to explore and discover.

Carlisle had never been the kind of man to be tempted by treasure. But when that treasure was the love and attention of a beautiful woman, things changed for him. Trying to resist taking advantage of all that Esme offered would be like walking through a path between overgrown bushes and trying not to get scraped by the branches. He would have to go very slowly and be very careful if he wanted to make sure that neither of them got hurt along the way.

As the sun rose, he prayed to God that they would make it through this unscathed.

"Darling." Her whisper floated to him from his study door, and there she was, like the vision of an angel come to take him to heaven.

He opened his arms and she ran to him.

"Carlisle... This day is finally here... I don't know what to think... I'm so happy, but I'm so... so confused..."

He wrapped her up in his embrace and rocked her gently, stroking his cheek across her hair. "I feel the same, love."

"I feel like I can never be close enough to you." She grasped his back as if holding on for dear life, her voice warm and weak.

"Soon, my darling, we _will_ be close enough." From above her head, looked out the window and watched the sun rise, a smooth spot of gold on the horizon. And he realized that this could be the last sunrise he would watch as a virgin. And tonight he would watch it descend in his last sunset, before he made love to her.

"I'm afraid, yet... I want you so desperately, Carlisle."

The way she said his name was sinful. He claimed her sweet lips and kissed her passionately as her hands firmly caressed his shoulders. She nearly brought him down, like molten lava devouring the side of a sturdy mountain. Somehow he stayed standing.

"I _promise _I will take care of you," he vowed through his kisses.

Esme pulled back and stared up at him, anxiety threatening to steal her away. "Have you...prayed about this?"

He was surprisingly relieved to hear her question, and he responded with strong, ready words. "Yes. _Fervently, _darling." Her eyes widened and a gasp fled her lips. "I love you, Esme. I cannot say it enough." His fingers slipped through her hair, curling around the nape of her neck. He was about to kiss her again when she interrupted him.

"But I love you so much more, Carlisle."

He backed away slightly, shaking his head. "Stop that. I don't want you to believe there is any imbalance in the reciprocation of our love for each other. Because there isn't."

Her tiny whimper made him realize the true cause of her distress. "That isn't what worries me," she murmured shamefully.

Lord, here it was. Esme had opened the window for him, that window he'd been watching all year long, knowing at some point he would have to jump through it. Now was the time for him to take that jump.

He had prepared many variations of the same speech, words designed specifically for this exact moment. But now that it was here, he realized that the words he'd practiced weren't real enough or honest enough to placate her.

So he told her the truth, from the depths of his heart. He acknowledged her past, and he vowed to reconcile her with a life of love and devotion. He promised her everything without hesitation, because he now knew this was a promise he could keep.

"Do you really love me that much?" she asked when he was through, impossible tears in her eyes.

"You're the only woman I've ever come _close_ to loving, Esme," he said emphatically as he embraced her. "Never question the sincerity of my love."

She bowed her head and stroked her little fingers up and down his neck. "I'm sorry... I only ever wanted you to love me, and I suppose...when you finally said that you loved me back, it was beyond anything I had ever expected to happen. I just couldn't believe it."

Longing to link their gazes, Carlisle tipped her chin up and smiled. "You believe it now, don't you?"

"Yes." She nodded once, resolute.

"I think you always have," he sighed, leaning closer. "You never need to be afraid of this, Esme." She tilted her head back and allowed him to touch his lips briefly to her throat.

"No matter what happens, know that I will always love you." He kissed her cheek and waited for her to look into his eyes.

Even now, he couldn't believe the adoration he saw in this woman's gaze.

A few hundred days had finally culminated into a few hundred minutes. He would allow time to dance with him this day, and when the night met him, he would introduce himself as a married man.


	41. The Last Supper

**The Last Supper**

_Chapter 62 of SGS from Carlisle's POV._

* * *

The relationship between night and day had always fascinated Carlisle. Both seemed to surrender to each other in their own ways; the day giving into night, and the night allowing day to overrule her at dawn's arrival. He'd lost count of all the times he watched the sun rise and set from all different parts of the world. But he was convinced that this humble old mansion in rural Wisconsin had the grandest view of all.

It was one of the things he so loved about this estate. The space of land behind his house faced directly north, offering a panoramic view of both sunset and sunrise. There was no question when the day had arrived, because every window let in the light at the exact same moment.

When he'd first explored the grounds of Chartercrest Estate, Carlisle never imagined the gardens could look like this. When he'd arrived to inspect the property, the land had been dead and dreary, overgrown with foul herbs and thick cushions of moss. Chipped statues offered their empty gazes to the sickly grey, defeat-colored sky. Sticking out from the maze of mottled hedges were random branches, frozen in threatening gestures to ward off anyone who might dare to enter.

This plot of land was now the perfect opposite of what it once had been. The sky was bright, filled with that lazy, refreshingly clean light that came from the residue of rain in the atmosphere. Everywhere he looked, lambent shades of green greeted him. Esme had restored the statues to their artisan glory, and had trimmed the hedges down to a paragon of cubic precision. Where rotting weeds had once infested the ground, flowers of every color and size now grew out of control.

Someday in the far future, when they had left this estate and moved on to another, this rich garden would once again be bleached like bone, dried up and withered with no one to care for it. But no matter how the seasons of change watered out the colors of this world, Esme would remain a constant spot of brightness when everything else had faded.

Carlisle closed his eyes, sighing, as he turned his face up to the heavens. It felt so good to be baking in the sunlight while he walked. The air still held the sparkling scent of rain and the thick, gritty odor of wet stone. All was quiet but the birds and the idle dripping of dew on the ground. If he listened closely enough he could catch the swish of new silk in Esme's curious hands as she admired her wedding gown.

A quick flash of envy sprouted in Carlisle's heart as he considered that he was the only one who had not yet seen the finished gown. Edward had been the one to retrieve it and bring it home, and Esme was probably trying it on at this very moment. He wanted to leave it a surprise until the moment she walked down the aisle. Esme clad in all white was one of the most memorable highlights of his favorite fantasies. It made her look like an angel, the epitome of divine purity and fidelity.

When Carlisle again opened his eyes, he was attracted to everything white in color. The clouds, the marble statues, the flowers that grew on the vine-covered gate. He reached over to pluck one flower from its place and held it fondly between his fingers. Inspired by its simplistic beauty, he began to pick more flowers that matched its untainted hue, then he spotted the enviable blue cornflowers he requested Esme bring to the wedding. Before long he'd fashioned a quaint assortment of blue and white blossoms. It was appropriate, he thought, so that Esme could carry the colors of the sky in her hands when she walked through the center of the cathedral.

It was more nostalgic to pick flowers that came from their own garden rather than to buy them from a shop. Besides, picking flowers was in itself a very relaxing activity. Carlisle needed something to distract himself from the runaway thoughts and emotions that were bound to plague him on this day. Collecting flowers in the garden was a quick and easy way to attain some much-needed peace.

He went on exploring every hidden nook in the garden where flowers might be growing. There were even more white varieties than he knew existed in their yard, but the most exotic of all was the elusive white anemone. When he first found one hiding behind the rampant leaves and iron twists, he had nearly gasped at the sight of it. Its stunning white core had both frightened and intrigued him, and he simply had to make it part of Esme's bouquet.

It was a strange flower, too odd and untraditional to belong with the rest. But he kept it hidden beneath the others where only those who accepted its existence could find it.

Carlisle felt an uncanny sort of kinship with the flower. He was drawn to it more for its strangeness than its potent contrast or its definitive symmetry. It reminded him of himself – an anomaly that wished to remain tucked away from others of its breed, making every effort to disguise its obvious spot of darkness instead of flaunting it freely for all to see.

Carlisle managed to seek out two more of the unique black and white flowers, which he placed carefully in the very center of the bouquet. He arranged the roses so they formed a protective dome over the anemones, keeping their scandalous colors hidden.

The more time he spent around these flowers, the keener he felt that germinating seed of love in his heart, that tiny bud of life in his soul... It seemed Esme was coming to tend to it.

"I am being watched, aren't I?" he asked, aware of the moment when her feet came to a standstill by the garden gate.

His shoulders tensed as she walked up behind him, and her small hands pressed snugly to his back. She let her head rest against his arm and murmured, "Mmhmm... Now you're being touched."

Carlisle closed his eyes and sighed, his body weakening in response to her words. He imagined how many times he might hear her say that once they were married; how many different touches she would give him...

He quietly cleared his throat before turning around to show her the bouquet he had arranged for her. "Something blue."

As her eyes fell to the flowers, her fingers rose to feel their petals. Her lips parted and suddenly she was speaking in her usual secretive tone, "I imagine a very, very long time ago, your eyes were once this color."

A piercing sadness struck his heart as he grasped her probing gaze. Such a comment to make – and so innocent. He had no idea what color his eyes had been when he was a human, and he couldn't think of a proper way to tell her this.

"Perhaps," he replied in a noncommittal whisper. He smoothly switched the subject by squeezing her hands around the bouquet. "I want you to hold these at our wedding."

She smiled up at him, and he could see in her eyes that she was without words. Her hair shone with a delectable reddish hue in the sun, like the hide of a fair fox in the forest. The sun's rays were interrupted by overhanging willow branches, casting tiny freckles of light on her nose and cheeks. Then she bowed her head and touched her nose to the flowers, like a mother nuzzling her infant child's head. Carlisle felt the poet in him begging for a chance to exercise his tongue, but he kept his lips sealed.

He watched as she savored the flowers' sweet scent, then she raised her head again and stared expectantly at him, with her sunspot freckles and her wide, wordless eyes. The poet in Carlisle couldn't keep silent any longer.

"When one first sees these flowers, one considers them spotless, pure...gentle and chaste," he said solemnly, "but they have a darker side to them."

His fingers penetrated the pure white bouquet to reveal the anemone blossoms he'd hidden underneath. He heard Esme gasp faintly when she saw the strange flowers.

"We can keep them hidden if we wish, or we can find it in ourselves to see the rare beauty in these flowers," he said softly, "to appreciate and revere the darkness they keep inside." His fingertips traced the dark spot lovingly. Esme watched the movements of his finger for a moment, in a trance, before she heard the meaning behind his words. Her eyes raised in recognition, a shimmer of doubt beginning to waver in her gaze.

"I made a promise to you, Esme," he continued boldly. "A promise to always love you and care for you no matter what... Now I must ask you to promise me something in return."

"Anything."

Her reply was awfully fast for not knowing what he was about to ask of her. Carlisle tried not to be too thrilled by this.

He took a deep breath before pacing his words. "Promise me that you will not hide your darker side from me."

The way her eyebrows suddenly shot up made his cheeks warm. "I have a darker side?"

"Everyone does," he said quietly, his fingers absently assaulting the flower petals until they became limp and sleek.

Esme suddenly looked flustered with shame. "If you're talking about our hunt yesterday—"

"It isn't only that," he interrupted, his voice unintentionally rough. He pulled his fingers away from the flowers, surprised to see the smears of rich black pollen on his skin. It reminded him of the way ink stained his hands after he'd been writing for too long.

"I think I'm still unsure as to what my 'darker side' is..." Esme whispered. He noticed a tremble in her rose-petal lips. Had she found his words frightening?

"Then you must promise me that we will discover it together." He kept his voice quiet, trying to hide the hint of force in his request.

Her eyes were wide open, scared, yet hungry. The freckles of sunlight sparkled on her fair skin, making her look twice as innocent.

"I promise," she whispered, much to his shock.

"And promise me that you will not shy away from _my_ dark side," he pushed her further.

She was beginning to show her anxiety now. She mumbled about him asking too much of her, but he needed her to answer.

"Promise me, Esme," he begged shamelessly, inches away from falling to his knees.

"When you speak of this...darker side...what is it you really mean?" She sounded suspicious, almost scandalized.

He decided to salt her suspicion with brutally revealing words. "Do you remember what I told you...about the rest of those letters I'd written to you?" His voice dropped as he curved his finger around her chin and forced her to look into his eyes. "The letters I burned?"

Her mouth fell open in realization, and his nerves trilled like throbbing strings on a violin, waiting for her to answer.

"I promise."

It was not the answer he had expected at all. But it was the answer he so violently craved. Relief swept around him like a blanket, and he promptly reached out to curl Esme up against him beneath it.

"Oh, there is so much I want to give you, Esme," he said breathlessly, his hard cheek resting on the shallow slope of her forehead, "so many things I want you to see."

Back inside the house a clock chimed, boasting its endurance to survive another sixty excruciating minutes.

"One more hour has passed," Esme whispered from beneath Carlisle's arms.

"And another will follow," he sighed.

Esme shuddered and held him tighter. "It can't come soon enough."

Needing to see her eyes, he pulled away and tucked his hands around her cheeks. "Still I dream of that moment when you will call me 'husband.'"

The title had seemed unattainable to him for ages. Now, he was hours away from earning it.

Esme shook her head infinitesimally between his hands. "My heart has called you my husband since the day we met."

She was such a vision in that moment – her long rosy curls wreathed by sunlight, her cheeks full with the weight of her smile, her lips plump with promises...

Subconsciously, he found himself leaning down as if to kiss her. But inches away from her lips, he stopped, testing his last stretch of sweet resistance. Strange though it was, his heart was telling him to savor the fact that Esme was not yet his wife. Once they were married, he could kiss her freely anytime he wished. Right now, a kiss from Esme was still very much a forbidden fruit.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?" she finally asked him, already warring with her breaths.

He hushed her patiently, like he would a sleepy child, then closed his eyes and let the scent of her nearness consume him.

She made a small moaning sound, shifting closer to him as if to catch his lips off guard. "Carlisle...what are you doing?"

His fingers stretched longingly toward her blushing lips. "Making a memory of what this feels like."

"What _what _feels like?" she breathed.

He swallowed and pressed his finger more firmly against her bottom lip. "Resisting you."

Her eyes sparked. "Damn resistance," she whimpered passionately, flinging herself against him with abandon.

Her enthusiasm threatened his control, but he managed to right her balance in the nick of time. "Esme, in seven hours we will be husband and wife," he whispered, stroking his fingers through her sunlit hair. "But for now, live in this moment with me. Embrace these feelings of longing and desperation while they last. Because when the sun sets tonight, God willing, these feelings will fade. And when they do, we will look back on this time and wonder how we ever felt so incomplete..."

He gave her credit for considering his words, but it only lasted a second before her gaze became hazy with want.

"You won't give me just one kiss?" she pleaded, her eyelashes fluttering dangerously as she hooked her fingers into his collar. She clutched her bouquet against her round breast and drawled in a whisper, "One very brief, very soft kiss?"

Carlisle flinched back as if she had drawn a sword to his belly. The temptation was great, but his control was still greater.

"I will, Esme," he promised. "Tonight, on the altar."

**-}0{-**

As soon as the sun hid behind the clouds, Carlisle left to make rounds at the hospital. The sky was being disturbingly cooperative with his intended schedule all week, making him wonder whether God was manipulating the heavens in his favor. Carlisle supposed he must have done something right to deserve such treatment. Nearly every one of his patients had improved greatly or shown readiness for discharge that morning. All news was good news, for the first time in months. He could not have asked for a more convenient shift.

His first few hours at the hospital offered him a chance to recover and distract himself from the events soon to come. He worked through a long checklist with a smile on his face and a familiar drive to heal. For those few comforting hours, his passion was geared toward treating and fixing his patients.

But by the fourth hour, his brain decided to go into hibernation. At the same time, his heart bolted up, wide awake inside his chest.

From then on, Esme dominated every one of his thoughts. He was lusting after the night like he had never lusted after anything before. This evening promised him so many tantalizing things he hadn't the audacity to even name. How had such fantasies escaped him until now?

His heart admonished him over and over again for not kissing her in the garden before he left. He only now wished he had taken her up on that offer.

His mind raced with all the ways he could initiate their night together. His body was victimized by a constant quiver, like a tall, leafless tree caught in a windstorm. Under the peaceful facade of a well-adjusted doctor, he was reeling with exquisite agony, full of wild desires and wicked impulse.

He could take her on the floor of his study, lay her down on the plush red carpet and strip her slowly, counting the inches of flesh he unveiled one by one. He would light the fireplace even though it was summertime, purely for nostalgic reasons, and the grandfather clock would chime patiently with every hour they spent making love, reminding them that they had an eternity waiting for them.

Or they could steal away to the wine cellar beneath the house, where he kept all his carvings. The cramp space would be like it always was – lit by drippy candles, dusted with wood shavings, and strewn with dangerous sculpting tools. He would use his sharpest chisel to slowly cut through Esme's clothes, careful not to graze the soft skin that hid beneath, and then he would lay her down on the workbench and love her roughly, under the watchful gaze of every saint and hero and animal he'd carved into those blocks of wood.

Or he could take her on the marshy shores of Lake Cordial, behind their house, beneath the moon. They could make love as if they were inside his beloved painting, rolling through the gentle waves, their hips sealed together, halfway hidden under the water. And when they were through, they could curl up together, dripping wet, beneath the canopy of willow trees, using nature to conceal their nakedness until the break of dawn.

Or they could run for miles into some mysterious mountain pass until they were entirely lost, utterly removed from any signs of civilization. Then they would seek out some deep, dark cave, and crawl inside, and love each other like the wild animals they really were... and their wails would echo like the distant howls of coyotes, and their bodies would thrash endlessly together, concealed by pristine darkness, savoring the luxury of being in the middle of nowhere.

Or he could take her like she probably dreamed he would, comfortably confined to their soft, warm bed, surrounded by those whispery blue curtains, exploring each other's bodies for the first time with wide-eyed reverence while the summer night sang its sweet lullaby through the open windows...

As titillating as all of his options were, the last still struck him as the most appealing. After all this time, his heart still ached most for that dreamy blue bedroom on the third floor of Chartercrest mansion. There was something familiar and nostalgic about that bedroom – even before he'd met Esme, he'd had a warm, precognitive feeling deep inside that he would one day lose his virginity in that very room. As far as his "darker side" was concerned, exotic escapades in the mountains and nude swimming in Lake Cordial could wait for another night.

In his heart he knew that Esme could be adventurous in her own little ways. It might take some persistent coaxing and a healthy dose of patience, but Carlisle was convinced that one day he just _might _break the workbench in his sculpting studio... and it wouldn't be because he used too much force to chop a piece of wood in half.

_God almighty..._ He'd spent only a little over four hours in the hospital, and already his mind was exhausted.

Around the fifth hour, Carlisle began to panic.

He considered that there were two possible explanations for the indecent train of his thoughts. First, that it was all simply the predatorial nature of a sexually starved male vampire. Second, that it was just a natural phase that all men suffered through when they were about to be married.

It had to be one of the two.

Because the third possible explanation was far too terrifying to even consider.

That these kinds of thoughts were unique to _him _– to _Carlisle _– and not to any other man, human or vampire.

That maybe he was only using the sin-swept perils of infallible men to excuse himself from the lustful fires that burned him every second.

No matter what the explanation behind his thoughts, very soon Esme was going to find out everything. He would not be able to hide from her any longer, either physically or emotionally.

He both wanted and feared this.

He had grown used to this particular combination lately. Nearly every want came with some kind of fear. Esme had already confessed that she felt the same.

So it must be natural.

Carlisle breathed in deeply the familiar scents of the hospital – the melting pot of tangy human blood and antiseptics – and was comforted. He rose from his desk and went back to work where productivity erased his woes for the time being.

Another hour.

It was the forty-five minute mark. Father Simon had already left the building. It was time.

Carlisle visited every patient one last time before he left, delaying his path toward the exit doors. Once outside, he shed his lab coat and let the warm air grasp his body. The sky was spotted with clouds, but no one else was around. He had the luxury of an automobile for easy travel, but part of him wanted to walk to the church that evening so that he could enjoy the crisp heat of early summer.

Esme and Edward were out there somewhere, walking the entire way themselves.

Just as quickly, that thought changed his mind. Walking would prolong the time it took to reach Esme. The car it was.

He drove all the way with the windows down. It was a day for taking risks.

The church was still empty when he arrived, so he used the quiet space for a time of prayer.

Carlisle asked many things of God, but only one request was answered just moments after he'd issued it.

He opened the doors and hurried down the front steps two at a time to see Esme running toward him with her arms open wide. She threw herself into his embrace, her face aglow and her hair fluttering out behind her. "It's really happening," she said whimsically, her lips pressed to his chest. "We're about to be married."

He hadn't yet processed the sentence in its fullness, let alone heard Esme declare it out loud. He couldn't say anything, but he could smile. He could always smile with Esme in his arms. Together they rushed into the church, as if escaping into shelter from a fierce storm.

Esme fidgeted just a little as the scent of Father Simon's blood filled the vicinity. Edward excused himself to go greet the priest, leaving Carlisle alone with his soon-to-be wife. Their sudden isolation and the sweet darkness of the vestibule seduced Carlisle's voice from the pit of his throat.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, his fingers eagerly roaming her face.

Her cheeks puffed slightly beneath his fingers as she grinned girlishly. "Like my feet aren't touching the ground."

They both laughed quietly, like two children sharing naughty secrets in the back of the church. Carlisle bent his head to get a better view of Esme's feet, ensuring that he hadn't accidentally picked her up off the ground.

"In those boots I'm not surprised." He nodded to her heavy, worn-out walking boots.

She leaned closer to him and revealed breathily, "I wanted to come barefoot."

A deep sense of affection overcame him as he pressed their foreheads together. "I'm sure you did."

She pouted. "Edward wouldn't let me."

Carlisle couldn't help but laugh again, as irreverent as it may have been while standing in the back of an empty cathedral. His fingers continued stroking her face aimlessly, constantly seeking out evidence that she was still real. He sighed, shivering, as her eyes glistened up at him, distressingly intent on his face.

"What do you think it will be like?" she suddenly whispered. Her question caught him off-guard, as if he'd skipped the last step on a staircase. She stared up at him unwaveringly, her pupils full and dark like the centers of those white anemones he'd picked for her earlier that day.

Pressured by her expectation, Carlisle opened his lips, pausing before he decided on an honest reply. "You know that warm feeling you sometimes get in the deepest part of your stomach?"

Her wide eyes immediately wilted, and she leaned her body into his, unable to stand straight. Her head bobbed against his shoulder, vaguely confirming her reply.

"I think it will be like that," he murmured, slipping his hands down the graceful curve of her back, "only it will last much longer."

Her breath fell against the bare skin of his neck, warming the same spot while he rocked her gently in his arms and whispered into her ear. "I think it will be like touching for the first time." His fingers traced up her spine until they reached her shoulders. "Or like music without sound..."

He could feel her lips trembling as he further described the sensation, and it urged him to speak more bluntly. "If your heart had a voice, Esme, it would be like hearing it sing." His hands cupped around her shoulders and swept back down again, settling firmly around her waist. "It may be a bit frightening... but it will feel wonderful. And if it changes us in any way, it will be a change for the better."

By the time his voice faltered away, her arms were holding him so tightly he thought they had become attached.

_Not until tonight_, his body reminded him. His eyes followed the twitching candles, envying their freedom to not keep their heat bottled up all the time. _Soon_, he promised himself, _soon I will show Esme just how far my fire reaches..._

He burrowed his nose in the curve of her neck, savoring her sweet essence for just a moment longer before he let her go. "I love you," he whispered, and he kissed her cheek. "It's time for us to get ready."

She parted from him reluctantly, an aching sparkle in her eyes as she disappeared around the corner. The next time he saw her, she would be dressed in a white gown, all for the sake of becoming his bride.

Carlisle refastened his patience for the tenth time that evening before seeking out his son. He explored the silent nooks and hallways that composed the rear of the cathedral, pausing to admire small stained glass mosaics and cased artifacts along his way.

"Carlisle?" he heard his name being hissed from the end of the hall.

He jumped slightly and turned to see Edward, fully dressed in his own formal suit, gesturing to a door in the back. Carlisle followed him into a cramp, carpeted office. "Father Simon says he'll be up in a minute," Edward said.

Carlisle exhaled shakily as he looked around the modestly furnished room. There was a desk, a few chairs, and a hat stand in the corner. Bookshelves lined the walls all over except for a blank space that was inhabited by a torso length mirror and a polished wood crucifix.

Edward had already laid out the groom's suit and necktie on one of the chairs. "I brought you another pair of shoes, too," the boy said, clearly proud that he'd had the wherewithal to come prepared.

Carlisle caught Edward's eye. _Thank you for everything, son._

The sentimentality in Carlisle's thoughts made Edward look away. "Just helping however I can."

Carlisle turned his back to the door and began to unbutton his work shirt. He stopped short when he had a thought – a striking thought that the very next time he unbuttoned his shirt, he would be doing it in front of Esme. Or... Esme might be doing it _for _him.

Edward cleared his throat. "Careful. We _are_ in church, Carlisle." His voice was more teasing than admonishing, but Carlisle continued to rigidly pick his buttons loose, committed to finish the task without another unexpected detour.

"Sorry," he mumbled out loud.

Edward sighed. "Here," he offered, reaching out one hand to take Carlisle's discarded shirt in exchange for his new one.

_Is Esme all right alone?_ Carlisle asked through his thoughts, hating the fact that he had company while she prepared by herself.

"She's fine," Edward mouthed reassuringly.

Carlisle released another tremulous breath and attempted to unfasten his belt with shaky fingers. He heard Edward take a step closer on the carpet.

"Relax, Carlisle," Edward said, his tone noticeably gentler than usual. "Everything is going smoothly. You have nothing to worry about."

"I know, son, I'm just feeling... overwhelmed."

"It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

Carlisle had to admit to the truth in Edward's words. There had been numerous occasions where he overreacted to a situation which turned out perfectly in the end. Even so, he never seemed to grasp that his concerns were always useless.

"You're going to be fine. And so is Esme," Edward spoke once more, sounding so sure that Carlisle felt his hands growing steadier as he smoothed the creases out of his black pants.

_If it isn't too much to ask, I would still like you to stand close behind me on the altar tonight, Edward. _

Edward's eyes locked with Carlisle's, alert with a fond curiosity. Before he could respond to the sentimental request, there was a faint knock on the office door, and Edward promptly opened it.

"Father," he addressed politely, stepping aside to let a third man enter the room.

Father Simon blinked uncomfortably when he caught sight of the doctor changing clothes. "Oh, I don't need to come in, son," he said quickly, stepping back. "I was just making sure we were all here."

"No, please come in, Father," Carlisle insisted, hastily buckling his belt in his best impression of a fumbling human. He picked up a half-empty bottle of cologne for show and pretended to dab it on his wrists.

Edward covered his grin with one hand, and the priest raised his eyebrows. "I'm not interrupting?"

"No, not at all!" Carlisle shook his head, and absently handed off the cologne bottle to his son. "Check on Esme, will you, Edward?"

Grateful for a chance to release his contained amusement, Edward slipped eagerly out the door.

Father Simon glanced about, confused for a moment before he closed the door behind him. "Your...nephew is a rather unusual young man."

"It runs in the family," Carlisle dismissed with a low chuckle.

"I see. Well, I must admit I'm quite anxious to see this fiancée of yours," the young priest continued. "Esme, you said her name was?"

Contentment curled in Carlisle's chest as he smoothly buttoned up his new white shirt. "Yes, Esme."

"Has she lived in Ashland for long?" the Father asked.

"No, no. Her family moved here from the East Coast just several months ago." It made him nervous to be making up things about Esme on the spot, but Carlisle was thankful that he was able to disguise his nervousness as natural pre-wedding jitters.

"And you fell in love with her that quickly?" The priest's voice was slightly skeptical but not judgmental. He seemed more curious than anything else, his question softened by a genuine smile.

Carlisle opened his formal black jacket and slowly stretched his arms into the sleeves. "Love can be very much like a bolt of lightning, Father."

The priest chuckled. "And as you and I both know from our time spent at the hospital together, a man struck by lightning has a very low chance of survival to begin with."

Carlisle helplessly joined in his laughter. "Perhaps I'm one of the lucky few who survived the jolt."

He caught the way Father Simon's eyes glinted significantly in his reflection in the mirror. "If I know you at all, you are a man who was made to survive, Carlisle."

Carlisle chuckled inwardly at the ironic statement. "That is quite comforting, thank you, Father." The room reissued silence as he began buttoning up the front of his jacket.

"So... where did you meet this young woman, if you don't mind my asking?" Father Simon inquired.

Carlisle knew the question was coming sooner or later, and he'd thought up a dozen scenarios he could recount should it arise. It was now a matter of choosing which one best eradicated the need for further questioning.

"I don't mind at all," Carlisle replied politely, turning around to conceal his grin as he adjusted his necktie in the mirror. "We actually met at the hospital." It was half true, considering Esme had been brought into the hospital in critical condition, though she would have been unrecognizable to any humans who may have seen her before.

"Oh? I don't recall ever seeing her there with you," Father Simon mused. "Was she one of your patients?"

"Yes, she was. But we only became involved a very long time after she was discharged, in case you were wondering." Thank the Lord for half-truths.

The doctor watched intently through the mirror as the priest behind him blushed slightly. "Forgive me if it sounded like I was implying your relationship to be improper. I know you are a man of integrity, Carlisle. I was just curious as to how someone so devoted to his work managed to secure a fiancée in such a short amount of time. Many of us at the hospital never suspected a thing."

Carlisle smiled forgivingly. "Well, I do prefer to keep much of my personal life to myself."

"And you manage it effortlessly. But I do wish you would have taken the morning off instead of coming in so early to the hospital on your wedding day," the priest said. "We could have asked another doctor to complete your rounds for you."

"It was no trouble. In all honesty I was anxious to spend some time with my patients this morning. I needed something to keep my mind off this wedding for a while." Carlisle took a long, deep breath as he stood before the mirror, his hands roaming the front of his jacket in vain for something to adjust. But he was fresh out of finishing touches. Everything was buttoned, tucked, straightened – perfect.

"Understandable," the priest said with a fatherly smile. "Your devotion to your duties at the hospital is what makes you the finest doctor I've known. But in any case, I pray that your marriage is lasting and fruitful."

A faint flicker of sadness filled Carlisle at the implication of producing offspring. "As do I."

Father Simon walked closer when he noticed Carlisle's change in expression, making an attempt to comfort him. "You will make a good husband, Carlisle. As a priest, I often meet with couples who ask me to save their marriages – they come to me with all sorts of problems you couldn't imagine. Yet I see the kinds of men who instigate such problems, and I can tell you right now that you are _not _one of those men...and you never will be."

"Thank you, Father."

"You're more than welcome, my son," he said as he tentatively touched the doctor's shoulder. "You have nothing to worry about. You have educated yourself on the church's expectations of marriage, and I know that you will live out those expectations as the Good Lord intended."

Both men's heads turned as a soft knock sounded on the door, and Edward appeared on the other side. "She's ready."

Carlisle took one last look at his reflection in the mirror. "Then so am I."

**-}0{-**

The moment Esme appeared at the end of the cathedral's center aisle, everything that had happened seconds before was erased from Carlisle's memory. He seemed to have entered another dimension of time as he watched her walk down the aisle towards him. Her eyes were fixed so securely on him she did not even blink.

There was no music or bells or singing, nothing to accompany her walk except for the sound of his own breath, hard and rushing in his ears. Her smile was like warm pink sunshine, and her skin glowed like freshly fallen snow. Her long gown flowed around her body, the silk like liquid and the lace like frost. The faint light that spilled through the stained glass windows spotted and streaked her with brilliant gem-tones as she passed them. And in her hands she clutched the bouquet he had picked for her, white roses and lilies hiding the black buds they both knew were buried beneath.

Carlisle lost count of Esme's steps as she made her way closer, floating like an angel to greet him on the altar. All he could think was how many times he had wanted _exactly this_, and now he finally had it.

She reached for his hand, finally close enough to touch him, and he caught her deftly, guiding her up the shallow steps to join him before the priest. As he'd requested, Edward had found a place to stand close behind him, and his nearness gave Carlisle a much needed blanket of security during a monumental moment.

After every line the priest read, Carlisle silently thanked the Lord, whose presence he felt more keenly than ever before as he stared into the eyes of the woman standing across from him. He repeated the words over and over in his mind, feeling they weren't potent enough to say just once.

_Thank you, God, for bringing me Esme. _

Carlisle knew that his soul would be strong enough to lift hers, as it would be warm enough to set fire to hers. Physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy would be his to claim in just a few short hours. All they had to do now was exchange their rings.

Esme's lips opened in wonder as she watched him fit the slim golden band securely on her finger. Her engagement diamond shimmered like a spark of silver fire, creating a stunning contrast with the smooth gold. Her finger curled under the new weight, training herself to accept the feel of it as something permanent.

Carlisle glanced at the second ring where it now rested in Esme's open palm. It was broader and heavier than hers had been, more fitting for a masculine finger. Carlisle had always coveted Esme's right to wear and flaunt this permanent symbol of their love from the time of their engagement. He had patiently awaited the moment when he would be given his own ring to wear as a testament to their everlasting bond. After receiving permission from the priest, Esme picked up the larger ring and granted Carlisle's wish.

From the second she touched it to the tip of his finger, he could tell it was going to be a very tight fit. Though her force was not hesitant, Esme just managed to squeeze the ring past his knuckle. She continued to push it down further in spite of its resistance, and Carlisle admired her fiercely for it. When it finally reached the base of his finger, she twisted it firmly, sealing it in its place.

He doubted it would ever come off.

He said "I do." She said it back to him.

The priest murmured a few more words, but it was God's voice that told Carlisle to kiss his bride.

As a man of faith should, Carlisle obeyed the order of his heavenly father.

**-}0{-**

The sky cleared completely that evening, as if angels had come to push away the clouds and make room for the wild heavens.

Carlisle believed that he had more to be thankful for than any other married man. He had waited longer, worked harder, and exercised more restraint and patience than most men could ever hope to handle. But his reward in the end was more fulfilling than theirs. He had received a partner who would last a thousand lifetimes, and never leave his side.

Tonight was just the start.

He took Esme's hand and ran with her, like a pair of reckless youths in some unrealistic romance novel. But this _was _real. How often he had to keep reminding himself of that...

He felt so alive, so connected with the world around him rather than apart from it. He was living in a dream, but that dream had become his new reality. He'd thought it would be a difficult adjustment to make, but he had accepted it as quickly as a breath of fresh air into his lungs. It was as if the axis of earth had been righted at last, and the mist of his lonesome past had finally lifted.

All along he'd been straining to see his life through a translucent glass pane, but now that glass had been shattered away. He stepped through it and was welcomed into a brand new world.

He shared his happiness with Esme as the sun dipped lower in the sky, a vague reminder of the oncoming night. Over and over he whispered to her, "We are married," in an awestruck voice – as if she were not thinking it as constantly as he was. She smiled and kissed him all over his face, and her laughter out-shimmered that of the stars above him. His dead heart thundered to life when they at last reached the front porch of their house, and Edward's demeanor changed from carefree amusement to an air of serious silence.

Still unable to frown, Carlisle looked away, unaffected by his son's shift in expression. He preoccupied himself with a familiar string of actions – open the closet, hang up his things, set his bag in the corner. Esme's hand never stopped clutching his the entire time. Already they couldn't bear to be disconnected from each other.

A prickle of fire touched his heart, and he became utterly still, facing the staircase.

Stairs. Leading up. Up to the bedroom.

Esme was still holding his hand. Now her fingers were creeping up his wrist, under his sleeve. She held tighter.

Edward was rambling about something or other, Carlisle could not even hear the words that left his mouth. All he could hear was a non-existent pulse in his ears, and the rustle of his sleeve as Esme's fingers ventured innocently beneath the fabric, and the breath that struggled to escape his lungs as he fixed his eyes on the intimidating flight of stairs straight ahead.

Had those stairs always been that steep?

Carlisle swallowed hard. Like a rock being thrown off a cliff, he had landed from his high. The joy of being married still radiated softly from his heart, but the pressing anticipation of the night ahead and what it entailed quickly replaced that gentle joy with a thrumming anxiety.

He did not foresee this.

The voices of Esme and Edward echoed strangely in his ears, sounding fuzzy and more distant the longer he tried to listen. His vision was blurry and his legs felt weak. He wondered for a moment if it was possible for a vampire to faint.

A lamp blinked on in the corner of the room, and the sudden spark of new light broke Carlisle free of his spell.

He tore his gaze away from the staircase and found his son's face. Edward's lips were moving, so Carlisle listened.

"If it's all right, I'd like to talk to Esme for a few minutes... alone?"

Edward's voice was more gentle than Carlisle had ever heard it before. His mind was telling him to release his wife's hand so that she could speak privately to his son, but he didn't want to let go.

Her hand, so tiny resting inside his own, felt as though it wanted to stay in its place as well, and this only encouraged his grip to tighten stubbornly.

But he had to let her go.

And he did, after a brief bout of inner warfare.

"I'll just...be in my study," he muttered, hoping his voice was too quiet to reveal the childish reluctance in his tone.

As Esme turned to stare up at him, almost pleadingly, he simply gazed back, knowing that his eyes surely revealed both his stubborn desire for her company and perhaps even a little of his insecurity.

Carlisle did not leave his wife without a small piece of him, though, and as he leaned in closer, Esme's beautiful eyes closed submissively, anticipating his soft kiss to her forehead before they parted ways.

He watched Edward escort her out the door, his heart aching with every step she took away from him. He had to be patient. Tonight was _his_. Esme was _his. _Edward knew this. He wouldn't keep her long...

Carlisle sighed and stuffed his hand into his right pants pocket, finding the communion wafers he had taken from the church that evening. He could at least make himself useful and feed the birds for a bit while Esme was away.

The doors to his study called to him, and he quickly sought refuge in the familiar room. It did not look any different on this night, but it _felt _different. There seemed to be a hum upon the air, a natural imbalance – a warmth, a humidity, a pressure.

Carlisle felt that pressure deep within, in a place not often attended to. It was a burning kind of feeling – slow and deceitful. He had his suspicions that it wanted to bring him to his knees. But he stood, still and strong, and waited for it to subside.

It always did.

He knew it would return again, but for now he had tamed it, and he would leave the coliseum vacant before the fight had begun.

Carlisle sighed heavily as he retrieved the small book of psalms from his pants pocket, flipping through the pages without really looking at them. After all, he had already memorized them all, each and every one of them echoing the same old familiar advice he had heard throughout his long life.

He gently laid the book to rest on the table by the window and made his way over to the fireplace. It gaped up at him with its mouth full of cinders as though begging to be lit with a roaring fire again. But it had to know that the winter season was over now. Summer was here.

It was a little bittersweet to think that he would not be needing heat from a fire for the rest of the season. Carlisle hated the cold, but as he had revealed to his beloved Esme long ago, he sometimes missed those winter days where he was forced to hibernate in his study.

He had been alone in those times, listening to Esme in the room above him with wistful ears, wondering if she had ever been listening to _him _below.

Now he knew that she had.

He caught his own bright reflection in the sunset-stained window and saw that his lips were pulled in a tiny smile at the thought.

Esme had dreamed about him, as he had so often dreamed about her. It thrilled him to think of the things he might have done to her in that tightly concealed world of her imagination.

She certainly had no idea what he did to her in his.

Carlisle's reflection changed a bit as he noticed his chest beginning to rise and fall in an unsteady pattern. His smile had faded, replaced by a hardened jaw and a worried brow.

Slowly, he averted his eyes and shed his jacket, finding it much too warm for his comfort. He draped it across the back of the armchair by the fireplace and made his way over to his desk.

Guiltily, he parted the curtains just a bit to peek outside at the yard, searching the grounds for where his son and wife may have been having their conversation. But they were regrettably nowhere in sight. Carlisle let the curtain down and eased his feet out of his shoes, sliding them discreetly underneath the desk.

He was thinking ahead.

It would be wise to dispose of his shoes ahead of time, before...

His face fell into his hands with a quiet groan as he attempted to shake the thoughts from his mind. Perhaps he was being foolish by refusing to think of his wife that way before they had been intimate, but the restraint felt...right. He was comfortable with restraint; he felt pure when he was abstaining.

The idea that soon – quite soon – he would no longer be _obligated _to abstain was almost frightening.

What would he do with himself then? How would he conduct himself without coming across as a starved fiend? How could he make Esme feel safe and loved if his basest desires got the best of him?

The concern triggered a sinking weight in his gut. He had promised Esme he would take care of her. And he would. He had already asked God to give him the strength to guide her, lest she find herself on uncertain shores. It was his duty, as her husband, to give her that guidance.

Yet he couldn't help but wonder if Esme secretly doubted his ability to guide her when the time came. After all, he had arguably less experience than even she did when it came to the physical subtleties of a married couple's relationship.

Feeling his collar becoming uncomfortably tight, Carlisle reached up to tug on the black tie that suddenly felt like a vice around his neck. He breathed deeply once it was gone, and left it on the door handle as he walked out onto the porch.

A wide-throated bird chirped directly overhead, almost mocking. In its wake rose a faint feathery rustle, too light to be wind, too quiet to be heard except within the dim recesses of the heart. The rest of the birds were calling to him already from their spots on the trees not so far away. He always fed them around the same time. Once at dawn, and once at sunset – assuming he had food to give them, of course.

Smiling sadly, he broke off a piece of communion bread and patiently crumbled it into kernel-sized bits for the birds to eat. It would most likely be their last supper. Carlisle tossed the tiny white crumbs over the railing to scatter them evenly about the grass. Then he watched and waited for the birds to arrive.

The mother birds always came first. They rarely stayed in the grass; they would snatch up the most generous pieces as quickly as they could and carry them away to their waiting nests. They had several more mouths to feed.

Then came the selfish brutes – the obnoxious crows. They would frighten away the little sparrows before they could even come near a crumb they had claimed.

But tonight there were only two crows to be seen. And they were surprisingly peaceful, keeping to themselves while the littler birds fed without interruption. The holy bread must have had some mysterious effects on these birds.

Carlisle leaned his weight onto both arms against the railing, watching the birds with vigilant eyes as he had once watched his Esme scampering about the yard when she was still a newborn.

How restless she had been back then, he thought with a fond smirk of reminiscence. He recalled her fascination with nature's unseen brilliance around her. She had so many secrets yet to discover. Carlisle had not been given such an opportunity to appreciate the wonders of a vampire's gaze when he had woken up, but he was not envious of Esme's fortune; he was only glad he could provide this for her. He was happy to have made her new life as secure and comfortable as possible.

It tortured him to think that Esme might never truly realize how _she _had made _his_ life into something worthy of living.

His eyelids felt cumbersome and his lips felt loose when his thoughts were filled with her vibrant smile. Her deep amber eyes glistened behind his closed ones as he imagined what she might look like lying beneath him in their bed. How her satiny voice would sound as she spoke his name in the darkness. How her supple body might feel pressed against his in the most intimate of ways. How it might feel to bury himself deep within her until he was utterly cradled, clutched, consumed by her_..._

His eyes shot open as the wayward chirp of a curious bluebird awakened him from his risqué reverie. The bird hopped over to him, disconcertingly close to where his hand rested on the stone, and it cocked its head left and right in that odd jerking way birds often do – as if it were wondering, _what sorts of thoughts could possibly have this poor man so enraptured? _

If only Carlisle could answer that question.

A divine level of fulfillment. An embodiment of fleeting but lingering perfection. A promise made by flesh and not words. An end to the ache that had plagued him for centuries.

The slightly gasping breath he took as he came to his senses sent the curious young bird fluttering away to perch in a safer place. When Carlisle looked back down at the railing, the pair of blue wings was gone.

His eyes returned to the grass below, and he sighed in disapproval at the little battle that had broken out amongst the bigger birds and the smaller sparrows. Apparently his bread had no lingering effect on their behavior, for the crows had finally realized that being sedentary had done nothing to fill their bellies.

With a quiet frown, Carlisle watched the very smallest of the sparrows as it fought bravely against the crows, chirping incessantly that they have the heart to spare one crumb.

Tears of venom prickled in Carlisle's eyes as he empathized with the tiny trying sparrow. His throat felt unpleasantly tight with sorrow, knowing there was so little he could do to bend the will of nature. It was all a game of survival of the fittest. Darwinian indeed.

Carlisle had no idea why he was feeling so incurably sentimental on this night. He should have been consumed with joy, relief, _something _on the brighter end of the emotional spectrum. But here he was, back on his porch, pondering with melancholy eyes, all alone.

A rather chilly breeze made him aware of the oncoming night as it caressed the invisible flush from his body. He breathed in the scents of the evening, wondering where the aroma of sweet ginger and honey had come from.

His ears perked eagerly at the titillating sound of soft lips parting to speak, and he immediately lifted his head to watch Esme approach.

Her steps were coy, and she looked very timid, arms wrapped tightly about her body as her slim evening coat covered the lacy white evidence of the bridal gown she wore beneath. He wanted to bring her closer and slide that coat off, revealing her bare shoulders to the chilly night air. And when she shivered, he wanted to restore her warmth with his arms, and kiss her passionately until every cell in her body caught fire.

Yes, he wanted to kiss her.

"Edward wanted me to tell you—"

In a crashing caress, Carlisle's lips had smothered those of his surprised bride, allowing her no room to refuse the gesture. His arms wrapped firmly around her small body, feeling the raw carnal power in his own body swell from the pride in holding her_. _She was all his and she wanted to be here, locked against him forever. She _wanted _him.

She was warmer than he had thought she would be – after all, she'd been shivering when she came outside. But now that he had her this close, he was the one being warmed by her.

And how warm she was. Her skin was like soft sunshine, her lips like plush fire, searing him. And if she was this warm on the _surface,_ then dear Lord, how warm she would be...on the inside.

Carlisle gasped a little at the thought, his lips drifting to the corner of her mouth before sense rescued him. Inviting the thrill, he dove back into her mouth to prolong the kiss.

The second he heard her nearly panting, he lifted his head to stare down at her, his belly blazing with a strange satisfaction for making her react in this way. He wondered if she could see his need for her, surfacing rapidly in his eyes.

She must have seen something, for her hands were trembling as they held to the front of his shirt, and he could feel the heat of them pressing with promise into his chest through the fabric.

He lowered his face to slide his cheek against hers lovingly, breathing unsteadily into the warm hollow of her slender neck. Her curls fluttered as his breath passed over them, and he let them tickle across his forehead, like fragrant russet silk.

"What was it Edward wanted you to tell me?" he asked, lips flirting unintentionally with the lobe of her ear.

"He wanted me to tell you that he loves you," she whispered back, that obliviously throaty passion marring her innocent voice. The sensation of her lips pecking gently over the angles of his jaw brought him back to life, and the gravity of her words pierced him with waves of relief and appreciation.

_Edward loved him. _

Esme must not have known that the boy had never before admitted such sentimental feelings for his father before, or else she might have been weeping with joy as her husband nearly was at this revelation.

For this to all be happening on one night was almost unbearable.

Carlisle looked down into his wife's enchanting eyes, taking her porcelain face between his hands as he prepared to tell her precisely how much of a miracle he thought she was... but no words came to him. And the words that did threaten to spill past his lips felt sinfully inadequate.

Esme's adoration for him was so potent it literally burned him. His hands slid under the river of her caramel ringlets, imagining for once without guilt how luscious they would feel when she laid her head against his bare chest.

Just the thought sent every particle of warmth in his body rushing to his loins. And if he had not destroyed himself already, her words had done it for him.

"I love you."

She said it too often, but he always _needed _to hear it.

She opened her doe-like eyes to his, and he reveled in the vulnerability at being stared at so intrusively. He knew she could see everything from his expression, every flicker in his face that might have betrayed his will to weep.

"I love you, and Edward loves you... You are so loved, Carlisle."

Heavens, how her voice made the word glow upon her tongue. Her throat must have been coated in velvet. He could listen to her say it over and over. He greatly looked forward to hearing her whisper the word _"love" _as she held to him tightly, beneath the covers on their bed.

The only response he could think of was her name, and out it poured in a listless, clumsy pair of syllables. Before he could hold himself back, his lips latched onto hers again in a kiss that was not so much clumsy as it was desperate.

He felt the tiny tugging motions of her fingers, her tongue, the whimpers held within her throat. He swallowed them all and asked her for more, but she could not hear him over the deafening bliss of his kisses.

"My need for you has grown too great to bear," he whispered his final confession at the brink of his unbroken control. "If you would have me, Esme." He coaxed her chin up with a tender sweep of his knuckles across her cheek. "I shall ask for nothing but your love for as long as we live. Please say you will accept me."

He sank fast in the sweltering pool of her gaze, and she told him, in every way possible, that he'd already had her permission since the beginning of time.

He was so _ready _for this. So ready to be her hero, her guardian, her lover for life. It had been so long since he laid in a bed; he wanted to remember what it felt like to have his head sink into a pillow, to have his bare skin wrapped in warm sheets. He wanted to be vulnerable and meek and tender, and he wanted to be voracious and urgent and bold. He wanted to tell Esme secrets that had nothing to do with his carvings, or his affinity for poetry, or his final symbol, or his history. He wanted to show her a side of himself that no one, not even he, had ever seen before.

Now there was no turning back.

Without a word, Carlisle scooped Esme up into his arms, and bravely carried her up that very steep, very intimidating flight of stairs.

* * *

**Thoughts? Musings? Complaints? Suggestions? Please share!**


	42. The Source of the Spark

**The Source of the Spark**

_Chapter 63 of Stained Glass Soul from Carlisle's POV._**  
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* * *

Her body felt as light as a flower, draped across his arms. He had to keep his gaze steady on her to remind himself that she was really there, and not just the hallucination of a sad, lonely man. He was not sad and lonely any longer.

This woman was real, and she was his _wife_.

The thought planted a seed of nervous arousal in his belly. With each step he took, Esme felt lighter in his grasp, and his feet felt firmer. His stomach, however, felt as if it were hiding the finale of the New Years Eve firework show inside.

Deep purple shadows danced around them as he carried her through the upstairs hall. Around the corner of the master bedroom door, a surreal streak of blue light peeked through, guiding their path through the darkness. _Oh, that room. _That room might as well have been the gateway to heaven.

When he reached the door, he leaned heavily on it, using his weight to open it. His focus remained entirely on Esme's face, watching her every reaction. As her eyes darted around the spacious bedroom, he felt her fingers tighten infinitesimally on his shoulder while he held her. A breeze flew uninvited into the room from the open window, causing the curtains to flutter and rise, like the skirt of a woman who stood too close to the rails on a ship.

Carlisle bit hard on his lower lip, determined to contain himself for at least a little while longer. He forced his eyes away from the bed and turned around to set Esme down on the ground. The only thing keeping him from stripping her down with his teeth was his genuine desire to draw this night out as slowly as possible.

It was for his benefit as well as Esme's.

He continued staring into her eyes, falling deeply into them, like a blind bee into an endless pit of honey. If he had still been a foolish preacher's son living in 17th Century England, he would have accused Esme of manipulating his mind and heart with witchcraft. She was breathing lightly through her lips, trembling just a bit, with a look in her eyes that made his knees want to collapse as if they were built from melted wax.

He reached out to her, his fingers itching to make contact with her soft skin. He touched her throat first, faintly, then followed the curve of her collarbone to twist and turn the tiny pearls on her necklace. He was not thinking of his gesture as suggestive, but the way her eyes darkened made him wonder if she read it as such.

"You're nervous," he said softly, wondering whether he should have phrased it as a question rather than assume.

But he could read her better than he thought.

She straightened slightly, and the darkness in her eyes brightened a little. "It will pass." He noticed the tremble in her voice; her confidence may have only been a facade.

"You aren't alone, Esme. When I was carrying you through the hall just now, I felt as if my stomach might burst."

She giggled shyly as he rubbed his hand against his lower abdomen. Just the sound of her relief was enough to make him smile. For that brief moment, things felt normal...easy...clear.

Then Esme placed _her _palm against his stomach. He savored the feel of her kind touch, letting the astonishment seep through his body. This was the touch of his _wife, _a woman with whom he would share his life until the end of time. Her eyes pierced his soul as she stared up at him, looking so trusting, so ready to be his...

"But you know," he whispered as he leaned over to kiss the top of her head, "I am feeling much better now."

And it was true. The confidence of having her trust seemed to pile extra muscle on his shoulders and add extra inches to his height. He wondered if Esme could recognize the subtle change in him whenever she looked at him like that.

Her body tensed immediately, not the response he was expecting. She turned to stare out the window instead, and with a shaky voice she announced, "It got dark so quickly."

Curious, Carlisle turned and looked. Though the yard and the lake were swallowed by shadows, the sky was still alive with vivid streaks of leftover twilight.

"The moon is still very bright," he noticed out loud, and he flushed with heat from his own observation. The moon was not only very bright, but very, very full and clear. As if a devious angel up in heaven crouched somewhere, shining a spotlight directly into their bedroom.

The moonlight alone was too sharp and striking for comfort. Carlisle could barely stand the idea of having his naked body scrutinized by the eye of such a moon. He needed to add warmth to this room; he needed a softer, less intrusive source of light to ease his nerves.

He gulped and turned Esme toward him, his hands covering her narrow shoulders. "Darling, if you don't mind, I'd like to...prepare some things before...well, we..." His mumbling trailed off into silence, and he stared beseechingly into her eyes.

"Prepare?" She repeated the word, short and breathless.

"Candles," he spilled suddenly, as if it were some awkward secret. "I need to light candles."

"Oh, of course." A look of understanding passed over her face, and she obediently backed toward the balcony doors. "I'll give you a minute."

Carlisle didn't want to ask how she'd known he wanted to light the candles in private. Lately Esme seemed better and better at reading his emotions from just one glance at his face. He wondered how well she would be able to read him once they were in bed together...

He managed to kiss her cheek just before she left the room, but his eyes followed her longingly as she walked outside onto the balcony. Her wedding gown spilled around her legs in layers of silk, like a wreath of ethereal mist. For the first time, Carlisle noticed how sheer her gown was with the moonlight shining through it. His keen eyes could make out the precise curves of her thighs and calves through the delicate white fabric.

He felt a twitch in his lap.

Finding himself short of breath, Carlisle willed himself to empty his lungs a few times before handling the matches. Once he sparked the first match with fire, he moved briskly through the dark bedroom, trying to ignore the pulsing pressure growing in his groin.

The carpet fibers seemed to rub against his feet in a purposefully titillating caress as he walked across the room. Erogenous tides of heat rolled up his legs, making it more challenging to keep his balance. He struck each match as if he were striking a whip against his wild heart – but when he lit the first candle, he did it gently, like a father placing a kiss on his sleeping child's head. The gesture brought him a sense of peace, and he found immediate comfort in the warm halo of that single candle on the fireplace mantle.

He rounded the room in a clockwise path, touching every wick with a tiny tongue of fire. The more light filled the room, the more the colors came alive. This room boasted every shade of blue imaginable. Some were more violet while others were more teal; some were richer and some were more delicate. The intricate designs woven into the damask wallpaper seemed to dance in the watery twilight, and the shadows from the window frames charted mysterious lines and trails across the sea of blue carpet. The young starry sky reflected back to him through every mirror and glassy surface, giving the entire room a faint sparkling effect. It all looked so magical in here at night, guarded by a luminous legion of candles.

After lighting the very last candle, Carlisle shook the matchstick vigorously to extinguish the spark. But the spark in his belly was stronger than ever. All around him, those candles winked and waved at him, eagerly awaiting the moment when he would bring his wife back into the room. Carlisle stood by himself in the center of the bedroom, holding a silent conference with his surroundings, struggling to reclaim that swell of unfathomable confidence he was sometimes able to grasp out of nowhere. He'd thought having his candles around would give him that burst of bravery. They had managed to settle his nerves somewhat, but he still had to fight a tickle of weakness that threatened to bring him to the ground.

He couldn't let his damned apprehensiveness get ahead of him.

Fired up against his timid nature, Carlisle approached the wall of windows with a soldierly gait. He raised his arms and grabbed hold of those wispy blue curtains – so delicate he felt they could vanish between his fingers – and he tugged them together to cover the transparent glass.

He offered the same treatment to the next window in line, and the next, and the next. Each time those curtains came thrashing together, the room grew a little bit dimmer, and the candles in contrast seemed brighter. He felt his strength returning in miniscule doses as he covered each window, protecting his bedroom from the prying eyes of night.

His biceps burned from the minimal effort of closing those curtains, but it set within him a renewed fire of self-assurance. Delicious streaks of strength curled inside of him, confirming his masculinity, declaring him the dominant presence in this room.

After the last window was covered, he glanced around, proud of the atmosphere he had created, confident and comfortable to continue the course of the night. Without looking back, he approached the door to the balcony and faced the outside world.

Across the yard, the forest shimmered with moisture and moonlight, and the perfumes of pine, cedar, honeysuckle, and lake water stirred in the air. An assembly of fireflies gathered by the balcony, and crickets congregated in the treetops, chirping merrily without a care in the world.

This was the night he'd happened to choose for his wedding to Esme. This was the night he was going to settle his raging desires for good. This was the night he would allow himself for once to be open and free, with one special woman as his witness. He hadn't expected tonight to look like _this_.

Not a night where the air was tinged a delicate pink, where a rim of frothy cirrus clouds peeked over the horizon, like the lacy hem of a young girl's petticoat. Not a night where the lake reflected the arriving stars with blinding precision, tricking the eye into thinking thousands of diamonds were floating blissfully on the waves. Not a night where the trees looked like majestic green angels, waving their mighty wings in the breeze. Not a night that tried so hard to mimic winter's chill even though it was the heart of summer.

No, this was not the night Carlisle had anticipated to be his wedding night.

And he had certainly never anticipated having a bride as beautiful as Esme.

She turned her head slightly and caught his eye, her cheeks rosier than he'd thought possible for a vampire. Her eyes reminded him of the sunflowers that grew in the French countryside. Even under a darkening sky, they burned the purest, brightest yellow, emitting a light all their own. Now, on this night, she looked upon him with a quiet fear. But it was a good kind of fear; a fear filled with tenderness and insatiable wonder.

It was not her physical beauty alone that enticed him; it was her inner beauty that left him breathless – her heart, her concerns, her trust in him, her childlike inquisitiveness, her insatiable curiosity. It had always been the little things about her – the way her neck curved when she tried to steal a second glance at something through a window she'd already passed. The way she blinked too often and too fast when she was trying to conceal a white lie. The way she pulsed lightly up and down on her feet when she was waiting for someone to catch up with her while going for a walk.

He smiled absently at his thoughts, overwhelmed by the impressive range of emotions that had already taken their toll on his heart. This night was only just beginning. If things continued along this way, he might very well be reduced to a sobbing mess by the time he made it into bed with her.

His right hand was already doing its nervous little writhing dance against his hip.

He thought he could see a tiny smile on her lips as she caught sight of it, but she turned away from him before he could be sure. He didn't want her to turn away from him. Not on this night.

He walked closer to her, aroused by the sturdiness of his own bare feet as they pressed into the concrete tiles with every step. He could see the way she was trembling beneath her glossy white gown, the way the lace crawled up her shivering arms, leaving so many spots bare for his fingers to warm. He sighed luxuriously as he pressed his body against hers, fitting his jaw against the curve of her neck as he leaned over her shoulder. His arms imprisoned her, feeling wonderfully hard and bulky against her slight feminine frame. Only when his mouth descended on the scars of her neck did he realize that she was crying.

Terror seized him, and he squeezed her tensely, breaking his spontaneous kiss. "My love?"

Her lips released a feathery faint whisper, "Yes..." Her body did not move.

"Esme." He meant to say her name firmly, but his voice was weaker than hers. Without permission, he turned her frozen body around in his arms.

_Please, God..._ he thought desperately. It could not happen this way. He'd worried for so long that it might, but he never allowed himself to believe that it _would_. Panic flirted with his sanity for a moment or two before he realized that he had complete control over the situation. This was the critical moment where _he_ determined how the night continued. It was left up to _him _to prove himself to Esme, to gain her trust before they took the next step – if they chose to take it at all.

"Carlisle..." she spoke at last, her voice tremulous but loving. For some odd reason, he couldn't help but smile.

His fingers traced along her cheek, reassuring and comforting. "You have never looked more beautiful than you do right now, Esme. Do you know that?"

His heart shattered when she shook her head.

He tamed the urge by holding her hand as tightly as possible. As soon as he saw the look on her face, he let go. She took a sharp inhale of breath and pulled back her hand, rubbing it the way his patients did when he pricked their finger for a blood sample.

"It hurt," she whimpered, her eyes full of regret and confusion. "It hurt when you held my hand."

It all came together quickly for Carlisle then; the reason why her embraces hadn't felt as uncomfortably tight as they used to, why her body weight felt slightly lighter, why the simple act of him squeezing her hand had caused her pain.

"It has been over a year since I turned you," he explained softly, hoping she would come to the realization as quickly he had.

Her face did not change, but her eyes remained open and curious, almost suspicious...

She was going to make him spell it out.

"You're no longer stronger than I am." As he said the words, his body responded in a most despicable way.

Esme's lips fell open, and her breaths came fast and shallow as the knowledge sank in. Carlisle immediately reached out for her hand again to test his strength, and she winced lovingly at the contact.

Oddly, he felt as if he'd been given a gift. Although his strength had never been taken from him in the first place, it felt as if he'd just gotten it back after missing it for a long, long time. He couldn't quite explain why it felt so _right _to have the advantage of strength over Esme. Perhaps he took some comfort in knowing that this was the way things were meant to be; that Esme's identity as a vampire was no longer an illusion in his mind. It was real. _She _was permanent.

"I'm not afraid," Esme spoke quietly, trying to assure him, "but I feel...worried." She looked down at the ground, her hand squirming inside his tenacious grip. "I don't know why."

"Oh, my dear Esme, your worries are for naught." On any other night he would have cringed at his habit of falling into dated speech, but tonight he didn't care. "You have nothing to fear... nothing at all." He traced his fingers across her cheeks and neck, reveling in the unimaginable softness of her skin. "You must trust your heart. Trust my love for you."

"I trust you," she replied, her voice a sweet echo to his passion.

Empowered by her trust, Carlisle leaned down to kiss Esme in thanks. Throughout his lonely life he had never known such satisfaction. He was tempted in this moment to believe that even bringing a dying patient back to life was not as intensely gratifying as kissing his wife. If Esme hadn't pulled away first, he might have gone on kissing her until the sun came up.

"Where do we go from here?" Her eyes searched his face for the answer, utterly dependent on his guidance.

Carlisle's hands slipped sensually over Esme's gown, settling around her waist as if they were about to begin a slow waltz. "Wherever you wish to go, Bright Eyes," he answered. "I am yours. I will follow you anywhere."

Her eyes turned up to the starry sky, and he wondered with a thrill if she might ask him to follow her to heaven.

"I feel cold," she whispered instead.

Her slight shivering was like a tiny gift from God. Behind the doors to the bedroom, dozens of candles waited patiently, ready to warm even the coldest body.

"It is warmer inside," Carlisle murmured, hopeful that the inviting glow of the candles would entice Esme to lead him back into the bedroom.

Although she did not move, he could see the want in her gaze. He could sense the desperation building within her, and it infuriated the already eruptive fire inside of him. Unable to resist, he claimed her small, trembling hand and pressed it firmly against his breast.

"There is a fire inside my heart, Esme," he confessed brokenly, stroking the back of her hand as he held it.

Her golden eyes became engulfed by beautiful black. "I feel it," she whispered.

"There was a time, not very long ago, when I wanted to wash it away... but now I want you to kindle this fire, Esme." He bowed his head reverently and stared deeply into her eyes, beseeching. "Will you let it burn as brightly as yours?"

A shock of purpose shimmered in her gaze as she stood on tiptoes to meet him. "Yes. Brighter." The sudden boldness in her voice stunned him. Before he could react, her lips were wrestling tenderly with his, and her hands were grasping blindly at the back of his neck.

Carlisle was filled with an intense sensation unlike anything he'd ever felt before, standing outside for all of nature to witness as he passionately attacked this beautiful woman. He was rethinking the meaning of words like "need" and "want" and "desire". Until he'd met Esme, he had never really known what those words meant. Now he realized his thirst would never be quenched by anything other than her love. He could have spent forever drinking from her, gaining all the nourishment he would ever need, just like this, mouth to mouth.

The only thing that enabled him to let go was the promise of what lay ahead. He backed away and breathed her in, wanting to possess her restless spirit. He roamed the fascinating angles and curves of her face with his lips, attempting to lick the moonlight off her milky skin. Every sigh she uttered was like a fresh blade being forced into his body. Only instead of weakening him, the sting of each blade made him stronger.

Esme's finger trailed timidly down the center of his chest, and the buttons on his shirt looked like nothing more than tiny, flat, white pebbles. He wanted her to rip them all out and toss them into the lake.

Carlisle lifted his head, daring to meet her eyes. Not even the Good Lord Himself could stop him now.

As he took Esme's wrists in each of his hands and led her backwards into the bedroom, his lungs began to pulse faster and faster, like an eager servant waving a palm fan to cool down his master. He closed the doors to the balcony, shutting the rest of the world out. The sounds of the night ceased with the click of the lock, and all that could be heard inside was silence, and the erratic beat of breath coming from one man and one woman.

His hands fastened around hers, careful not to hurt her again. Gently, he arranged her fingers along his shirt collar and leaned close to her ear. "I'm yours, only yours... I belong to you..."

As his words weakened her, he only gained more strength. He began to feel a burst of fervid energy rising inside of him, casting a shadow on the doubts he'd harbored deep within. He was slowly rediscovering another side to himself, a side that was beginning to take beautiful shape before his eyes. A bold and daring hero was coming to conquer the timid preacher's son.

Carlisle had transformed this bedroom and made it into a personal haven, just as he had done with his study. He was a brave and clever general who had claimed his territory with an army of candles. The tantalizing glow and the hypnotic heat – it was all _his_ doing. He was offering it to Esme. He had brought light and warmth to a place that was once dark and cold.

But it wouldn't hurt to dim that light just a bit...

Emboldened by his small victory, Carlisle took hold of one of the candles on Esme's nightstand and lifted it to his mouth. It was a sensually driven impulse, the sudden desire he had to taste the candle's flame. He touched his tongue to the wick, startled by the sweltering fever that spread through his body as the fire instantly vanished with a sound like a soft hiss of pleasure. The candlestick fainted from the shock of his kiss, and it landed on the carpet at his feet. Esme watched his uncharacteristic display, her wide eyes sparkling with coy astonishment.

Her devout doctor had just let one of his precious candles fall to the ground. For a priest's son, such a slip was unheard of. But this was _his _night, he was in _his _bedroom, and _his _wife was his only witness.

Never before had Carlisle indulged himself in such a full, rich taste of complete control; such a deep drink of enticing entitlement. It was incredible.

He could do _anything _in this room. Anything that came to his mind. He could do anything...to Esme.

The idea was so terribly thrilling. He pulled her close and engaged her in a battle of hot, slippery kisses. The touch of the candle flame had added a mysterious power to his lips – an intensity and endurance beyond his capability. Esme made the most glorious little noises against his mouth, and her fingers were everywhere on him at once, searching his clothes for weak seams. Her hands eventually found their way back to his collar where she began exploring the scars on his throat.

There was once a time when her touch would have lit a torch of agony and self-pity within him. But now he felt barely a whisper of sadness for the loss of his human life. Carlisle tilted his head back and welcomed Esme's heavenly touch.

God, how he _needed _this. Those scars were one of the most sensitive sites on his body, and Esme touched him there as if he were made of the finest porcelain. Her caring fingertips glided across his skin, leaving behind a burning trail of love in their wake.

His eyes opened when he felt her fingers brush the chain of his cross around his neck. Thinking she may have been hinting for him to remove it, he quickly reached behind his neck to unlatch it. He halted in confusion when Esme pulled his elbows down to stop him.

"Keep it," she told him, and her lips pressed a chaste kiss against the cross where it lay on his chest.

He swallowed hard, knowing she could hear it. He and Esme had never been this close for this long before; the intensity was almost too much for him to handle.

She may have convinced him to keep his cross, but he was not going to keep anything else on his person.

There followed a significant stretch of time where their eyes did all the communicating they needed. _Continue_, Carlisle pleaded through his gaze. He grasped Esme's lace-covered elbows and moved them closer, until her hands were again perched on the top of his chest. His left hand slowly slid up her forearm and his fingers aligned with each of hers. With tender precision, he guided her index finger down and curled it suggestively around the first button on the base of his collar.

"Go on," he told her, his throat like sandpaper. Her fingers were frozen in place. The diamond rose on her engagement ring glittered under the intrusive beams of moonlight, like a cluster of ice crystals.

She looked mortified.

But that did not deter Carlisle the least bit. Glowing with newfound confidence, he nudged his cheek against hers and reminded her that he was now her husband. Then he let go of her hands.

He watched her intensely as she struggled to find her bearings on her own. The trembling of her fingers made him feel powerful, but the shy determination hidden behind her eyes made him delightfully nervous.

She undid the first button. The room got warmer.

She undid the second button. The room was uncomfortably hot.

Then she reached the third button and he saw how much of his skin was revealed.

_Mercy_, how glorious it felt to show her even that tiniest bit of skin! His breaths came faster as she slipped open the fourth and fifth buttons, each time taking more and more of his body out of hiding. He had never felt more in tune with the sensations of undressing before. Esme made it into an art, as she did with everything else. The precise brushing, pulling, and flicking of her nimble fingers was divine.

Her teeth were firmly pressed into her bottom lip and her eyes were keenly focused; it was the same expression she wore when she was trying to paint those tiny details on her canvas with a pinpoint paintbrush. Her concentration flattered and thrilled Carlisle. Little sparks and shivers raced through his body, anticipation coursing quietly through his tense limbs until she reached the waist of his pants – and that was where she faltered.

There was still one more button that had yet to know the gentleness of Esme's fingers... and that button was under his belt.

Carlisle felt himself stiffen immediately when her hands entered more private territory. Though it was not enough yet for her to notice right away, his entire body trembled with unwarranted excitement.

His hands struggled to stay steady as he helped her untuck his shirt. Then he lined each of her fingers up with his own and slowly and carefully released the final button from its bond, guiding her through the trickiest part. Both their hands were shaking and they were so distressingly close to his lap. He found it unbelievably intimate.

As soon as the button was freed, Esme's dainty fingers clasped either side of his shirt and stretched them apart to reveal his bare chest. She was like a child opening a gift on Christmas Eve because she just could not bear to wait until Christmas morning. There was a tragic twinkle of wonder in her eyes, as if she were staring at something expressly forbidden yet inconceivably beautiful. Her expression caused another explicit swelling in his pants.

He let out a long, deep breath, putting forth every ounce of effort to stay still while Esme disrobed him. Her fingers tugged awkwardly at his sleeves as she worked her way down his arms. She peeled the fabric off of him slowly, like the skin of a ripe fruit she was preparing to devour.

Carlisle was all too ready for her to devour him. He was showing hot, hard proof of that just several inches below her hands.

His shirt fell to the carpet with a defeated sigh, and Esme stood back to take a good long look at her tall, pale, half-naked piece of fruit.

Carlisle soaked in the moment of being lovingly scrutinized by his wife's curious eyes. Her gaze made him feel both adored and objectified, in a perfectly desirable way. He could tell by the look on her face that she had never truly seen a man like him. She was taken aback the newness of it all, yet clearly thirsty to explore and discover more about him; about _his body. _

All his life, Carlisle had regarded his body simply as a means to walk to the earth. Pale and statue-like, he'd always thought of his vampire self more as a hard, empty shell than warm, pliant flesh. But all it took was the generous touch of a woman, and his body was suddenly pulsing with life.

As he took Esme's hand and guided it across his chest, he was truly exploring himself right along with her. He was noticing things, physical traits about his body that he hadn't even discovered until now. Centuries of shying away from his naked reflection in the mirror now left him wide-eyed with wonder as his eyes favored the novelty of his own flesh as much as Esme's. And he was captivated by what he saw.

He was moved by the way she stared at him – as if he were a monument of manly perfection. He glowed beneath her gaze, growing hot from her attention, and he wanted nothing more than to share that heat with her.

His hand reluctantly backed away, letting her do all the touching. When her fingertips swirled shyly around his bellybutton, Carlisle felt about to jump out of his skin. The sensation made him feel hot and ticklish and utterly loved. No one had ever touched him there before...

She began to elaborate her little caresses, gaining confidence as he let her roam freely across his torso. His breath hitched when her fingers fluttered south, down his belly.

Esme's mouth opened as if to apologize, but no words came out. She timidly withdrew her hand, still staring dizzily at his waist as if she had made some daring discovery.

She was about to discover much more.

Carlisle sucked in a long breath as he felt a demanding pull from deep in his groin. He obeyed the demands of his body and began to unbuckle his belt, his fingers fumbling slightly as they resisted frenzied haste in favor of measured calmness.

Carlisle never remembered being so eager to rid himself of his belt. Right now it represented a cruel restraint, one he was determined to break apart. He loved that Esme could watch him do it.

The sweet click of his belt coming unlatched was like the starting note to a lovely symphony. The quick sweep of leather against fabric followed, and the soft whip of the strap as it escaped the final loop. Carlisle reveled in the release of tightness, failing to suppress a quiet groan of appreciation as he carelessly let his belt drop to the floor. He felt amazing – untamed and free – like a horse without his bridle.

Esme slowly folded her hands over her heart as she watched him toss his belt onto the ground, looking both reverent and slightly shocked by the scene. God help him, he wanted to shock her even more.

His mind was suddenly rolling with unmentionable fantasies. One after the other, they streamed through his subconscious like a ruthless tide. He wanted to rip her pretty white gown to pieces, and scatter the bits of lace and silk all over the bed like a snowstorm. He wanted to tear through the fabric and chew the laces off her back like a starved animal. But that gown was too beautiful to destroy.

His eyes were suddenly drawn to the pearl necklace around Esme's throat. Something so innocent and delicate would fit nicely between his incisors...

He chided himself and perished the thought. _Gentle_, he reminded himself, the voice coming like a whisper out of his heart, _You must be gentle with her. _

And he truly wanted to be.

His fingers miraculously did not tremble as he reached for the necklace. He flicked the clasp with ease and it dropped from around her neck. If his hand hadn't been there to catch it, it would have slipped right down between her breasts.

Instead those tiny pearls rested safely in the palm of his hand. He was still surprised by how strong his urge was to snap the string in half and watch the small white beads explode like a firework and go rolling all across the floor. _What had caused these uncharacteristic urges to break, to taint, to treat everything so roughly?_

This thought worried him, but he entertained it for a few moments whilst twirling the pearls whimsically between his fingers.

_No, _he decided. He did not spend his hard earned money on pearls for Esme only to have them scattered across the bedroom. Gulping back the ridiculous urge, he cautiously tucked the pearls into a figure-eight and laid them to rest on the nightstand.

The next challenge that awaited him was the tangled web of fine, thread-like laces on the back of her dress. He reminded himself to be discreet in his intentions. Never did he blatantly reveal to her that his most fervent focus was to disrobe her entirely. She knew this, in the very furthest reaches of her mind, but it was understood that they must pretend it was a secret. That was how a first attempt at intimacy worked. At least Carlisle thought so.

He disguised his exploration as a gentle embrace. Meanwhile his fingers searched lazily for a way to untie the laces that crisscrossed down Esme's back. His hands spread over her satin skin, seeking a way through the barrier of separation until he finally came across a weak knot. Like a poor man who had just discovered a bag of gold on his doorstep, Carlisle twisted his fingers gently into the laces to loosen them. He could almost feel a heartbeat inside his chest as he untied loop after loop down Esme's back. He settled his chin on her shoulder and watched as her bare back slowly came into full view.

When he reached the very last knot, a flutter of fire filled his heart. Esme's gown slipped significantly from his fingers, but he grasped it just in time before it could fall. He paused, breathing hard against her neck, his body rigid and alert, as if he'd just missed the last step on the staircase.

He backed away carefully, his fingers desperately tight around her back, keeping her covered. When he met her eyes, he expected to see fear. All he saw was trust.

She nodded once. He withdrew his fingers.

That goddess-like gown sloughed off of Esme's body in slow motion – the lace like mist, and the silk like water. She blossomed before his thirsty eyes, like a beautiful butterfly shedding her white cocoon.

She wore only a delicate slip beneath her dress. And this was the least amount of clothing Carlisle had ever seen Esme wear.

Though he was titillated to the point of not being able to stand straight, Carlisle tried to appear calm and collected. He stroked her shoulders reverently, wonderingly, teasing the thin straps of her slip. The room started to swim around him. All that filled his field of vision was Esme – her full breasts peeking shyly over the little fabric that still clung to her. Her slip was about as thin as tissue paper, and as translucent as bathwater. Even in the dark room, he could see the faint pink points on each of her breasts, grazing softly against the silk as she breathed.

She noticed him staring, and she shivered, causing her breasts to sway slightly. He felt himself harden more at the sight.

Blinded by temptation, he flicked the straps of her slip off her shoulders.

Just an instant of Esme bare-breasted was all Carlisle got to see – as if he had been flipping quickly through the pages of a book, accidentally stumbled upon a thrilling picture of a nude female, and then lost the page. Frustration flared through him as her hands quickly came up to hide her breasts. He had to fight the urge to tear them away. But Lord, even with her breasts covered, she was spectacular.

If he hadn't known she was real, he would have believed she was painted into the room. Her body was winter pale, almost shining in the darkness. She stood awkwardly, in only her bloomers, and out of shyness she kept her head curved to one side, her eyes downcast.

As a man with a restless imagination, Carlisle had always held high expectations for what Esme might look like beneath her clothes. So far she had put every single one of those expectations to shame, and she wasn't even fully unclothed yet.

"Beautiful," he whispered under his breath, knowing she probably couldn't even hear him. "You're too beautiful, Esme." He choked softly on the words, the temptation to sob growing stronger the longer he stared at her. He wanted to drop to his knees and worship this woman who had brought such a bright light into his life. He felt that he was teetering on the edge of a precious precipice – mere seconds away from seeing Esmefor the first time, without any barriers or walls or restraints. He had a sudden, ridiculous moment of panic, worrying that the world might end before his eyes could finally feast on her naked body.

He reached with one insatiably curious hand and ran his fingers over her shoulder. The mere smoothness of her skin made his cheeks burn. "I wish to give you all of myself, Esme," his voice came out, quiet but hoarse. "Please tell me you will give all of yourself to me."

She replied more readily than he anticipated, with a full, surprisingly adamant _yes_. He imagined his eyes must have been wider than an owl's when she said it. "I will give you everything, Carlisle," she elaborated, her voice like butter. "Everything."

He had to touch those words before he could believe that they were real. His finger made contact with Esme's lips, and he felt the weight of her honesty.

"I want to show you so much," he rasped. The hardening desire in his lap twitched enthusiastically, begging to be the first shown. "More than I have ever dreamt of showing anyone else." His voice lowered to a whisper, "Even more than I have shown myself."

Esme's eyes flashed with forbidden excitement, bright and vulnerable under the flickering candles. He swore he even saw her fingers start to gently fondle her own breasts as she stared at him...

"I want to see it all," she whispered back, deep and secretive.

His pants now felt so tight he worried they would tear right down the front.

He swallowed hard and nodded. "You will."

The lush change in Esme's scent screamed of aching femininity. Like an animal seeking his prey on a dark night, Carlisle's entire body was on alert. His thoughts were jumbled and brief, focused on nothing but _her_. It seemed his body was gearing up, simmering, and readying him for a glorious confrontation.

"Oh, Esme..." He sighed her name with forensic fidelity, as if it were the first line of a poem. He bent down to cover her face in soft kisses. "How long have you felt this ache within you, as I have? How long, my love?" A bittersweet pang filled his heart when he reminded himself that his loneliness had reached its end. "We can heal each other, you know... You can heal me, and I will heal you."

Her lips trembled as if she were about to cry. Just when he thought he had helped her conquer her bashfulness, she squeezed her hands protectively around her breasts and tucked her chin against her shoulder. _Look away, bite her lip, hide her eyes_... it was always the same gloriously endearing reaction when he spoke forwardly or stared boldly at her.

Carlisle wondered briefly if she might react the same way even when he was finally thrusting into her on their bed.

_God,_ it made him want her even more.

He couldn't help himself. He curled his hands tightly around her and tilted her head back to receive the full weight of his kiss. It was a kiss that began gentle and patient but grew into something treacherously intense. His tongue ventured timidly into her mouth, acclimating to the deliciously wet heat.

When he kissed her now, in this dark bedroom, he had a potent human memory of biting into an apple. The crisp tang, the startling sweetness that sizzled on his tongue and left the back of his throat craving more. A strange, protective instinct was aroused within him, begging him to swallow her whole.

Esme's small body teetered slightly, falling off balance while Carlisle kissed her. He managed to lift her up before she collapsed, backing away slightly so she could find her bearings. Once upright, he slipped his eager hands over her soft skin, pressing a possessive path into her pliant waist and across her arms. At the end of his fascinating journey, he found her wrists and cuffed them in each of his hands.

He pulled them ever so gently, and she finally gave in. Her hands fell limp in his grip and moved away from her chest.

The sudden sight of her nipples made him flush. They looked so fragile to him – twin blossoms of color on her plump breasts, a faint strawberry pink. He was taken aback by how vulnerable she looked, standing defenseless before him. Her breasts were full and perfect, more luscious than anything a Renaissance master could create with his intricate paintbrush.

As hypnotic as he found the sight of Esme's body, he wasn't about to risk staring at her this way for much longer. This was the first of the most crucial, delicate steps they had to take together, and he had to be sure he did it right. There were no second chances when it came to making a woman feel safe and loved.

Carlisle did the safest thing he could think to do. He reached out and pulled her into a tender embrace. He should have known what having her body so close to his would do to the state of his arousal. He wondered if she could feel his desire in the same way that he could feel the obvious swell of her breasts against his bare skin. She was so soft, with all the innocence of an orchid in bloom as he held her. The feeling of having a woman pressed against him so intimately was entirely foreign to Carlisle. No matter how deep and detailed his dreams had been, they had never grasped the sheer wonder and joy from having a real, loving woman in his arms.

His moment of bliss was interrupted by the faint sound of Esme's gasp. Immediately assuming that she had felt the demanding hardness in his trousers, he backed away slightly with the hope to ease the pressure between them. It broke his heart when he saw a flicker of fear in her inky golden eyes.

Carlisle's intentions were momentarily foiled as he studied Esme's uncertain expression. He did not know how to continue, whether he should apologize or keep kissing her as if nothing was wrong. Should he ask her if she wanted to stop? Should he even risk embarrassing her by asking?

_No more uncertainty, _he tried to remind himself. Esme was looking to _him _for reassurance and direction. So far, he had assumed control over this night. He could not let one frightened look on her face turn him around.

What he _could _do was chase that fear away.

His hands held her tighter, careful not to impose too much force on her. She felt so fragile when she trembled. _Lord, _how fervently he loved her. He wanted so terribly to love her in the proper way, the way a husband is privileged to love his own wife. Driven by impulse, Carlisle picked Esme up off the ground and carried her over to the bed.

He had never once laid in this bed before. At the moment he could scarcely recall if he'd ever even sat upon it. But now that he was up close, he was able to appreciate how intricate the designs were on the antique wooden headboard, and he could see the ridiculous number of pillows that were lined up against it.

As he gently laid his wife on the mattress, his own body was drawn into the inviting shadows that lurked behind the canopy drapes. For the first time, Carlisle saw that bed in an entirely different light – a deep, dark cavern in which he could safely unleash his most beastly passions.

The thought gave him a surge of unprecedented power as he leaned over Esme's reclining body, bowing to the bed that awaited his weight. He tested the wingspan of his arms in a way he'd never done before, stretching them as far as he could, claiming the space for himself and his wife. The silky blue quilts flowed like liquid when he pushed them aside. Something about the feel of the bedspread made his stomach tighten. So did the fact that there were so many pillows he wouldn't know what to do with them.

But really, the number of pillows on the bed should not have had any effect on the number of butterflies in his belly.

Esme's eyes were wide and receptive, blinking up at him as he hovered over her. She seemed to be asking him a million questions, but he could decipher none of them; he was so possessed by her beauty. Her breasts toppled slightly to each side when she laid flat, offering him a wide open valley between them. He thought that pretty little valley could use a nice river of venom... a river that could flow all the way down her slim, flat stomach.

Carlisle took a long, shivering breath and forced his wandering eyes back to Esme's face. Looking at her face was no less tempting. All it made him want to do was kiss her.

But he did much more than that.

Involuntarily, his hips dared to grind up against her leg. Though he still wore his pants and she still wore her bloomers, it was not enough to keep him from feeling how enticingly soft her thigh would be beneath the fabric.

He knew she'd felt him when he heard her gasp a second time. This time he was more than certain it had been his obscenely hard erection that had caused it.

He reluctantly pulled away from her, keeping up a face of silence though he really wanted to shriek with sobs. But he had to keep reminding himself that this night was first and foremost about _Esme_. He had to find out what _she_ wanted before he could indulge himself in his own desires.

There would be a time for _him_, but it was not now.

Carefully, Carlisle fished around in the sheets for Esme's hand, and when he found it, his fingers clutched and rubbed hers victoriously. She sighed happily, comforted by the simple act of him taking her hand. That gesture was his most reliable crutch in those times when he was unsure of where to head next.

From then on, he slowly regained his confidence by kissing her in new places. His tongue toyed with her delicate earlobe before slipping across the underside of her jaw. After a little while, he ventured shyly from her face and down her neck. He managed to kiss her collarbone, but her breasts still intimidated him. Even as he pasted his lips to every inch of her arm and her shoulder, his gaze still wandered, taunted by her full, heaving bosom.

He was not afraid to kiss her there – rather, he wanted to kiss her there so badly that he shied away from doing it at all. Every time he thought he had worked up the courage to do it, he backed away and dove for another safe, comfortable place to kiss instead. For the time being, that soft white valley between Esme's breasts remained river-less.

She seemed to be enjoying the attention, nonetheless. He was mildly fascinated by the way she had started to move in response to his touches. She writhed like a content feline on the bed as he caressed different parts of her body, experimenting with the inbred magic of his eager fingers.

The combined motion of their bodies caused the sheets to stir up like a sea being churned by restless winds. Some of the sheets were white, and some where blue. Carlisle smiled when he noticed the symbolic colors had followed him from Esme's wedding bouquet to their wedding bed.

The sounds she made were a crystal clear symphony of her pleasure. Each touch he offered elicited a new sweet melody from her lips – like the chords of a harp, her whimpers seemed to shiver, creating a harmony only his ears could hear. His name slipped out of her lips several times during the course of his kissing siege, and every time he heard it, he made sure to show his appreciation.

But the more he moved over her, the closer he came to thrusting against her. His instincts were too great to resist much longer. Once he recognized the urgency of his current state, Carlisle knew the time had come for him to initiate the next step.

Esme's eyes opened curiously as she felt him backing away from her. He lifted himself gracefully from the bed and straightened up. The full moon targeted him with a broad beam of light, sent spearing through the lofty windows to illuminate his bare torso. Soon, much more than that would be illuminated.

Esme still watched him with thorough interest as he lowered his hand to his waist, but it was not until his fingers slipped between the buttons of his trousers that he heard her breath catch in her throat.

Carlisle took a final, empowering breath before he undid his fastens and tugged his hips free of the stern black fabric. An immediate hot spell took over his entire body as he felt the cool air meet his warm skin. Ever so slowly, he pushed his pants down the length of his legs, bending down awkwardly to hide his face so he could regain his composure before standing back up.

Those pants were expensive and should have been folded on an exact crease to keep from being ruined for good. But he carelessly brushed them aside with his foot, fully intent on leaving them on the floor for the rest of the night.

Things were very different now that he, Carlisle Cullen, was completely and inescapably naked in front of a woman. God only knows he _never _thought he'd see this day.

Still slightly shy, Carlisle closed his eyes to protect himself from the expectation of meeting Esme's gaze.

_Let it soak in, _he tried to calm himself. In the very back of his mind, Carlisle could almost hear those little remarks Edward or Eleazar might say to him if they were here to pick on him. _Stand up straight _– _whatever you do, do not cower. Show her that you are the strong one. If you embrace your dominance, so will she. _

Tentatively, Carlisle straightened his back and took deeper breaths to settle his nerves. His hands were still tempted to cover his lap, but his conscience chided him not to do it, in a heavily accented voice that sounded suspiciously like Eleazar.

_You have nothing to hide anymore _– _you are a married man! Your wife knows and appreciates the fact that you are male. Take pride in what you have to offer her!_

Silently asking God for that last bit of reassurance, Carlisle stood tall, letting this newfound feeling of freedom wash over him like warm bathwater. It felt wonderfully strange to be stark naked in a room other than the bathroom, particularly one with such lavish furnishings. The decor of this room was so rich and ornate that it seemed to emphasize even more the utter bareness of his body in comparison. But the more he allowed himself to embrace his vulnerability, the less it seemed to intimidate him. In fact, he almost felt even more powerful without the confinement of clothes.

As he let that subtle power rise within him, Carlisle soon felt confident enough to open his eyes again. He kept his gaze trained on the ground at first, taking a furtive glance at his own nude body from above. He was pleased to see that at least the candles were kind to his nakedness, offering only the gentlest light to touch his skin. A familiar flush crept around his neck as he faced the sight of his fully erect member. Not even the timid glow of the candlelight could subdue something so painfully obvious.

_Take pride in your body, _his smooth-talking conscience reminded him. Carlisle accepted the encouraging nudge and stood tall, his spine soldier-straight and his legs firm. His fists clenched lightly against his hips before he allowed his arms to relax and his timid eyes to rise.

The expression on Esme's face was several steps above bewilderment. In her hand she clutched the corner of one cotton sheet, a soft shield to partly cover her gaping mouth. Her eyes were glistening and full of longing, as if she were staring at an unattainable dream. She blinked several times in awe, perhaps waiting to see if he would vanish before her eyes. Her stare heated him from the very core of his being, dripping with love and fear and delight.

He twitched excitedly under her excessive attention, and she burrowed coyly into the bedcovers, turning her face away in sweet humiliation. The devilish, debonair side of Carlisle purred with pride.

Curious as to what had made her look away, Carlisle chanced a peek down his front. The candlelight's efforts to soften the stretch of his arousal had all been in vain. The moon – that full, troublesome, sadistic moon – was now shining directly over him, more garish and unforgiving than ever. If it wasn't just in his imagination, he could have sworn the moon was purposefully aiming brighter beams of light _below _his waist.

Carlisle gasped and quickly moved his hand between his legs to protect himself from the intense spotlight. Thank the heavens Esme wasn't watching.

_You were doing so well, _his conscience sighed in disappointment. Carlisle withered slightly at his momentary regression, but he couldn't let it hold him back.

He stepped forward, eager to feel Esme's gaze on him once more. She indulged him in a brief glimpse, but it was still enough to start a fire in his chest. Even so, she looked worried.

"It's all right, Esme," he assured softly, bending closer to steal the sheet away from her clutching fingers. She let go without a fight.

Their eyes met, and it was like a tender, swirling, electrical storm had been unleashed between them. As Esme's pouty red lips parted invitingly, he felt a glorious tingling around and below his bellybutton. That surge of power and confidence came flooding back to him, and all he wanted to do was reveal every inch of himself to her bright, searching eyes.

His hand dropped away, no longer bothering to conceal the enraptured bulge between his thighs. By now, it was downright impossible.

It was also obvious that Esme was being very careful _not _to look directly below his waist. Carlisle smiled inwardly, fully embracing her apprehension. He found it endearing, and even a tiny bit thrilling.

With self-assured grace, Carlisle knelt boldly on the carpet beside the bed. He took hold of her hips and tugged her toward the edge of the mattress until her lithe little legs were dangling over it. He stared into her eyes and teased the ruffled waistband of her pure white bloomers, waiting for her permission to proceed.

Before he could register the consent in her eyes, her hands were braced above his, warm and trembling. In one maddeningly slow motion, she guided his hands down both her legs until they were as bare as his. He dutifully finished the task by collecting the last remaining garments and tossing them aside. They would not be needed for the rest of the night...or the next morning...or possibly the morning after that...

_Yes, _his mind's voice agreed fervidly, _this feels far too nice._ _You should never put your clothes on again, you foolish man. _

A welcome shudder ran through his body at the unrealistic suggestion. Now that Esme was naked _with _him, well... things were heating up much more quickly than he'd expected. Though she kept her thighs tightly sealed to preserve what little modesty she had left, he still brazenly savored the sight of her bare hips. The demanding weight of his desire grew heavier as his eyes traveled hungrily across her lap.

Overcome with intense emotions, Carlisle bowed his head and began to smother Esme's exquisite legs in voracious caresses. As much as he loved feeling taller than her, Carlisle also discovered that he adored the act of _kneeling_ before her, the servile appeal of having his head lower than hers. His hands slid sensually up and down her calves, reliving the moment when he'd first touched her in the dark sitting room of her farmhouse in Ohio. He closed his eyes and moaned quietly, surrendering himself to a river of reverence. His fingers discovered every inch of her ivory limbs, slipping curiously between her perfect toes, and curling affectionately around her velvety heels. Yearning to taste her, he brushed his lips lightly along both of her quivering knees, then lifted himself up off the carpet.

He heard her sigh as he stood to his full height – it was a quiet sigh, camouflaged by the sound of sheets rustling beneath her as she shifted on the bed. But he heard that sigh. He even dared to guess what had caused it.

He made sure to flex his muscles discreetly as he reached for her shoulders, gently encouraging her to stand up with him. She had hidden in the shadows for too long. It was about time she had a taste of the harsh moonlight along with him.

Again, she did not resist.

His hands slipped down her body and curved around her waist, appreciating her perfect hourglass figure as if she were one of his most brilliant sculptures. With an artist's eye, he took the time to look at her properly, without the cloak of darkness. Her breasts bobbed appealingly with every breath she took, her nipples plump and silky in the silvery moonlight. As his eyes ventured south, he was smitten with her creamy white curves, and utterly entranced by the way her navel appeared to be in the subtle shape of a heart. His eyes stopped, however, when he reached the tempting swell of her hips. And there his heart jolted like a startled stallion when he spotted the tiny satin-pink slit between her thighs. His tongue positively trembled with the need to tease and suckle every inch of her...

He was dangerously close to doing just that when he felt her tender touch on the side of his face. Her fingers were stroking his cheek in such a chaste, loving manner, he felt the effects of it deep in his belly. The muscles in his abdomen clenched in anticipation as he dared to grasp her fingers mid-caress.

Facing her, he felt so much taller, so much fuller, so very proud and strong – yet his heart was weakened by the stark comparison between his physique and that of the fragile female standing before him. Doubt slackened his muscles while pleasure prickled beneath his skin, and suddenly it seemed there were soft wads of cotton where his kneecaps should be.

The idea of their bare bodies rubbing against those sheets, against each other – skin to silk – was so appealing.

Esme's hand wrapped around his desperately, as if he were the mast and she the wind-whipped sail. Carlisle remembered another time when Esme had reached out to him like that, long before they were even aware of their feelings. They had been alone in the forest together, on one of their early morning hunts. He recalled how soft and warm her fingers had been, sliding over the flat surface of his palm. He had still been quite naive to the sensation of a woman's touch back then, and her slow, delicate caress had made his cheeks flush. To him it had felt like a prelude, and when her thumb brushed the sensitive skin of his wrist, honest pleasure flowed unexpectedly into the pit of his stomach.

That sensation repeated itself, here in his bed, and it was a hundred times stronger now. Esme's strength was still sound, as if she were trying with all her effort to crush his bones, but it was no longer enough to conquer Carlisle. He proved to her that he was now the stronger one by firmly enveloping her in his arms.

His hands were all over her, exploring, delving, beseeching. In a frenzy of need, he pulled her into the bed along with him, tumbling blissfully into their own private ocean of sheets. Soft, delicate sheets that just barely cloaked his throbbing desire.

He purposefully kept himself covered for Esme's sake, sensing her vague discomfort if he did not. It made him slightly nervous that she was trying to avoid looking anywhere but his face. He would have to rectify her impression of him by the end of the night, somehow...

The most he could do was treat her with gentleness and exercise epic patience with the rest of his anatomy. She did not make it easy on him, especially when she tucked herself into the covers beside him and started running her hands through his hair. He scooped his hands under her back and pulled her closer, torn between the utter joy in having her all to himself, and the urgent fire he hid underneath the blankets.

_Surrender, _his heart seduced him in one simple word, and he obeyed. All he could do was stare at her in astonishment, his mind too warm and spinning to concentrate on anything other than the presence of the woman in bed with him. _A woman...in bed...with him. _

Dear Lord, how did he manage to do it?

Carlisle couldn't help the almost cocky smile that pried its way onto his lips.

Esme's artistic fingers played happily over the features of his face, her gaze alight with fiery fondness. She was beautiful, she loved him with every fiber of her being, and she was willing to continue loving him for eternity.

And, he decided, the best way to start eternity was with a kiss.


	43. The Fire Unleashed

**The Fire Unleashed**

_Chapter 64 from Carlisle's point of view._

* * *

Carlisle couldn't seem to remember the series of events that had led him to this moment. His head followed Esme's in descent, and at the very second she hit the cushions, he took her lips in a passionate, breathless kiss.

Esme dragged her fingers longingly against his scalp, kneading the most tender spot on the back of his neck when he began to touch his lips to different parts of her body. He started safe, lingering in the space above her collarbone. He sampled the sweet skin of her shoulder, her neck, her ears – so smooth and tempting. He consumed all of her with every one of his senses – her lips like fruit, her hair like silk, her eyes like jewels.

With each part of her he tasted, his stomach burned ravenously, and his mind traveled to a dark paradise. Soon, God willing, they would be linked to each other, not only by lips, but by their bodies.

An unbridled eagerness spurred Carlisle to slide the sheets away from his wife's breasts. They were full and soft, whiter and more luminous than sugar. His jaw weakened at the sight. The thought that her exquisite body was created all for _him _– to tempt him, to hold him, to accept him – it was too much. She raised her body slightly towards him, breathed in deeply, and shuddered in earnest.

Oh, how he wanted to touch her. It was like staring at a beautiful painting in a museum but not being able to reach out and feel it. He was thrilled and afraid to let his fingertips meet her skin; what if she flinched away in fear? What if he dared to touch her intimately, and it felt so good that he wouldn't be able to stop even if she cowered away from him?

The question constantly taunted him in the back of his mind. When was she going to shy away from his touch? He was convinced it was coming, but never knowing _when_ was too painful to bear.

His mouth began to water at the sight of her breasts. If he did not sate himself somehow soon, he was going to bite right into her sweet flesh. As if she'd read his thoughts, she made a soft moaning sound and twitched beneath him. His eyes latched onto hers, piercing her into stillness as he prepared to touch her.

Her eyes fluttered closed when he finally laid his fingers on her. She pushed against him and clutched the covers on either side of her. He could see that she was still holding back from him, hiding her emotions and suppressing her true reactions. Although it upset him slightly, he understood why she did it. All his life, Carlisle had suppressed and restrained himself in that very same way, for those very same reasons. But now that they were a married couple, these rigorous habits of suppression were unacceptable. They both had to learn to let go...

Still stunned by his own shyness, Carlisle slid his shaky fingers over the fascinating curves of Esme's plump breasts. He thumbed her nipples gently, and nearly gasped at how soft they were. She shivered on the bed, her eyes tightly shut, surrendering to her own private world of new, exotic pleasures.

Carlisle's breaths grew choppy and erratic as he explored the beauty of his wife's purely feminine features. His breath caught as his finger passed through the voluptuous valley between her breasts, discovering a spot so soft to the touch that it brought him to the brink of impossible tears. Unable to resist, he bowed to her bosom and began to suckle her like a thirsty infant.

He felt her nipple shrink to a delicate point between his eager lips, and he dared to open his mouth wider, to consume more of her, to consecrate her flesh with his hot venom. She made lovely little mewling noises as he ravished her with his tongue, noises he'd never heard from her before – noises he'd never heard _any _woman make before. Excitement built like a red-hot fire in his chest when he discovered he was capable of eliciting such sounds from his naturally timid wife.

She curled her fingers through his hair encouragingly, massaging his muscled neck with artistic enthusiasm. He carried on in blissful urgency, moistening each precious inch of her bare breasts, her delicate collarbone, her elegant shoulders...

Possessiveness glowed like a beautiful but distant sunset on the horizon of his self-control. Carlisle still very much feared the feeling, though he secretly longed to embrace it. His tongue continued to twist and dance across Esme's soft skin, while inside his mind and his heart were at war. Every time he watched the chain of his cross trail across Esme's breast, he wondered if it was acceptable for a husband to expose such aggressive feelings to his new wife. He wondered if God would berate him for feeling such intense pleasure because of what he was doing to her right now. Every flick of his tongue and every pinch of his fingers felt so, so sinful... Yet her reactions only made him want to do more.

And Esme showed him such beautiful, confusing, unspeakable reactions.

When he began to get carried away with his kisses, she yelped in surprise. Startled and concerned, Carlisle raised his head and studied her face. "Have I gone too far?" he asked her breathlessly.

She avoided his gaze as she shook her head, her hair falling all across the pillows in luscious curls and waves. All he wanted was for her eyes to meet his, so he could see the true reason for her sudden shift in emotion. He worried deeply that it was something he had done; a touch she may have misinterpreted or a move that may have hurt her.

He would never know unless she told him. It was quite clear she wasn't about to give him any hints.

Determined not to show her how discouraged he was, Carlisle leaned over Esme and kissed the sweet, delicate column of her throat. Her only reaction this time was a blink.

He pulled away, his whole body going numb as a little quiver of dread swept through him. _Slow and steady, _his conscience calmed him. _Do not overwhelm her with too much at once._

As he laid himself down beside Esme, Carlisle closed his eyes and tried to savor the feeling of simply resting in a bed. He challenged himself to relax every part of his body, save for his hands which still firmly clutched the sheets to his hips. Perhaps if he remained still enough, Esme would eventually reach out and touch him. She was, after all, the most curious woman he knew. Surely her instinctive curiosity would grab her in time. Surely just laying beside his body was torture for her, when he was so close that she could feel his heat.

At some point, she would initiate contact between them. Her soft fingertips would slide down his stomach, and underneath the sheet...

All he had to do was wait.

Thinking it wouldn't hurt to peek at her, Carlisle opened his eyes halfway and glanced to his side. Though she did look like she was tempted to touch him, her eyes seemed to be suppressing a fire, and her fingers were curled into fists.

"Why is there fear in your eyes?" He frowned.

He watched a shadow fall over her face. "I'm not afraid of _you_," she struggled, wringing her small hands between the sheets. "It's just..."

Their eyes met at last, revealing the truth.

"Memories," he supplied quietly. She released a long breath, nodding timidly. She looked so helpless in that moment, the last thing he wanted was for her to feel as if he were forcing her into making love.

He had to assure her that this was not his intention. He may have been a starved man, but he was not desperate enough to manipulate her against her wishes.

Carlisle took a deep breath and sat up straight in the bed, keeping firm hold of the sheets in his lap. "If you feel like I am rushing you, Esme, you _must _tell me," he said emphatically.

Her eyes glistened with worry. "But I don't feel that way at all," she insisted. In a panic, she reached out for him, her palm thumping against his chest.

He stared at her hand first, then at her face, trying so hard to understand what her course of thought was. Her obvious longing, coupled with her fear and her frantic intensity... it was all frustratingly confusing to him.

"I feel so many things," she shook her head, her words rushed. "So many feelings I can't explain. They confuse me—but in a good way—I suppose...and..."

She stopped short, beseeching him to finish her thought with wide, desperate eyes.

"Everything is new to you," he said, nodding slowly in understanding. "I've told you, it is the same for me, Esme." He reached across to envelop her soft elbow in his hand. Carefully, he stroked her arm with his fingers, coaxing her with his gentleness.

As Esme watched his fingers swirl softly into her skin, she looked about to cry. "Your touch is...so different than—"

The second her voice dropped off, Carlisle's heart dropped with it.

His back stiffened and his fingers immediately stopped stroking her. His body, once warm and strong, now felt cold and weak. Though he hated to show it, the implication set by her words had hurt him. Carlisle did not want this night to be about Esme's history with another man. Selfishly, he'd hoped she would forget everything about her past marriage as soon as he took her to bed; but deep down, he was wise enough to know that it would never happen that way.

Carlisle moved away from the beautiful woman who was curled up between the pillows, seeking consolation in the fervent glow of his bedside candles. He swallowed the lump in his throat and warmed his lonely finger in the wet wax.

"Carlisle, I'm so sorry." Her voice was heartbroken and choked. He felt the tips of her fingers ghost over his back, desperate for him to turn around.

"No, you have nothing to be sorry for," he told her in a dark and quiet voice. "I want this night to be perfect for you, and if that means we do not go any further than this, I will gladly accept that as your wish."

He had never lied to Esme so brazenly before, and not felt at all guilty about doing so.

He _wanted _to love her. He _wanted _to claim her. His only wish was to fill her abundantly until she could hold nothing more of him. Oh, sweet Lord, he wanted to be utterly lost inside of her, so deep that he could never pull out. He wanted to feel himself shuddering within her, and her squeezing him mercilessly until he came like rapids into her womb.

It would be absolute torture to wait another night to experience such heavenly bliss, after he had already waited centuries. But he wondered if now was the time to hide his naked body, to dress Esme back up in her nightgown and place a chaste kiss on her forehead, tuck her into bed, and cage up his passions for the night.

When she slowly sat up, his heart began to plummet, and he wondered if she was preparing to leave their bed. He wondered, until she spoke.

"I never said I wanted to stop."

Her shy remark affected him like the ripples on a pond – soft and unassuming. A hopeful flicker of warmth came to life inside of him, chasing away the numbness in his limbs.

He lifted his fingers so slowly, so carefully – as if she were a tiny bird that might flutter away if he moved too fast. But Esme did not cower away from him. She did not even blink as his fingers feathered across her cheek.

The moment his fingers touched her, his heart all but collapsed inside his chest. It was so strange to think that this woman – this kind, gentle, beautiful woman – had been beaten and humiliated by a scoundrel who did not even deserve a name. Just the image of Esme being brutalized in another man's bed was enough to bring out the beast in Carlisle. Just one thought of the horror she had lived through made him want to claw and growl and tear something apart. While his sudden craving for violence shocked him, it did anything but curb his arousal.

Carlisle was more determined than ever to show Esme that she belonged to _him_, not to some dreaded memory that still haunted her in the night.

"I know what he put you through," Carlisle whispered roughly to his wife. "And Esme, I promise, I swear to you now, I would never—"

"I know," she broke in, her voice surprisingly sharp. "I know, Carlisle."

Her eyes glistened with sorrow, but the way they reflected the flame of the candle was mesmerizing. It was almost like a tiny orange spark had been lit deep inside of her.

Carlisle wanted to lose himself in her eyes.

He felt her hand curving around his, calming the surge of violent resentment that had so abruptly swept through him. He closed his eyes for a long moment and burrowed into himself, seeking out his true spirit. "I love you... so much, Esme," he said softly, his body begging for redemption.

"I love you just as much," she whispered back to him, sweet and helpless.

And he thought, in that moment, that he could be gentle with her, despite this sweltering fever that coursed through him. He would love her slowly, cautiously. He would hold her hand through it all. He would give her kisses like raindrops, and he would bury the bonfire in his belly.

Then she touched his shoulder, and he began to wonder if loving her gently was even possible.

Her hand traveled smoothly and curiously across his chest and his arms, and he wondered how he had just seconds ago thought of her as helpless.

_He _was the helpless one.

Carlisle moaned softly as Esme lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his wrist all the way around. Her tongue tickled the crease between his thumb and his forefinger, and it sent a charge of lovely electricity through his arm. There was such reverence in the way she kissed him, such unfathomable affection in her eyes as she took in every inch of his skin. For the first time, he felt that he truly and deeply _belonged _in this body; so in tune, and so connected to his own muscles, his own bones, his mind, and his heart.

With her gentle, powerful, feminine hands, Esme pushed her husband down into the mattress.

On the inside, Carlisle reeled with excitement and relief. This was a surrender, but it was also an acceptance of a blessing – the glorious sensation of being _whole, _being _loved. _

Her hand pressed boldly into his breast, as if hoping her heat could bring his dead heart pulsing back to life. Their gazes locked, and he at once saw her intention sparkling like black fire in her gorgeous eyes.

Tentatively, he took her hand in his.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes." Her voice was firm but quiet, her breasts heaving with anticipation. "I want to touch you."

_She wants to touch you!,_ his conscience parroted, overjoyed at the prospect. _An unspeakably beautiful woman with two very talented hands and unimaginably soft fingers wants to touch you..._

But where?

Carlisle gulped as he grasped Esme's hand more firmly, sliding it far down his chest until she touched the sheet that lay across his hips.

That damned sheet was the only thing hiding him, the only thing separating his rock solid desire from her achingly soft curves. He could feel the thin, downy fabric grasping him, clinging with the determination to keep him hidden as long as possible. But his desire only kept growing, strong and fast, like a tree in summer, hungering for freedom.

He shivered when he felt Esme's fingers flutter frantically against his hip, trying to keep that sheet in place. She was shy and she was afraid of what he kept hidden – he could tell by her face. But he could not tell why this pleased him beyond reason.

He caught her hand before she could move away, and he pressed her small, slender fingers into his stomach. Her wrist flinched in surprise, but with a bit of tender encouragement, her hand relaxed in his. He took advantage of her surrender, painting himself with her fingers, letting her discover every tiny crevice and muscle on his broad chest. He watched her face privately as he helped her touch him, flattered and thrilled by the enchanted expression on her face. Dreamy-eyed and short of breath, Esme looked at him as if he were made of solid gold, and it was unlike anything Carlisle had ever felt before.

He felt...desirable.

She seemed to be admiring every part of his body in turn, inspecting his differences with shy curiosity. He could feel the heat rising from his skin, and the tension building in those uncharted depths behind his groin.

Arousal teased him with conflicting waves of discomfort and pleasure. Esme's concentration was unwavering, but Carlisle's patience was quite the opposite. Still, he advanced with unthreatening slowness, allowing Esme many chances to stop him in case she changed her mind.

He heard those flimsy blue window curtains whispering nervously on the other side of the room, as if they too were waiting for him to slip the cover away from his lap. Esme sighed, her fingers swirling absently above his bellybutton.

Eyes darkened, breathing ceased, and the candles crackled. Without any thought, Carlisle gripped the corner of the sheet in his right hand and began to drag the fabric slowly away from his body.

The silk encased him like a delicate glove, making his task even more difficult. With Esme scrutinizing every move he made, he could do nothing without a tremble in his fingers. In a few seconds, the sheet was off his body, and he swore he could feel his heartbeat restart.

Although he had already stood utterly naked before his wife just minutes ago, Carlisle felt a very different kind of vulnerability, laying down on the bed as Esme stared at him. As overflowing as she was with spirit and passion, Esme was very much a lady of Victorian upbringing. Her eyes blinked quickly and anxiously, trying not to look at once place for too long.

It made him blush inside to realize that she could see, very plainly, how sorely he needed her. That she might reach out and touch him at any unsuspecting moment, and she would feel how determined he was to make their bodies one. And unite them he would, with only one part of his body. This part of him that was so unabashedly and obviously male, kindled by a gaze that was so smolderingly female.

A divine blast of heat cascaded down his thighs, turning his muscles to putty. As if she could feel the sudden burst of heat coursing through him, Esme clutched the sheet against her bare breasts, covering herself from view. She held her hand over her mouth to hide whatever expression might betray her true feelings. Wide-eyed and stunned, she was the very image of Victorian modesty.

She was so much like him.

It was confusing, he thought, to have been brought up in a world where one's sexual instincts were considered evil. For a man who had been taught to suppress such desires his entire life, Carlisle found moments like this to be even more perplexing. The will to be chaste, encased within the drive to be passionate, wrapped within the fear of showing too much skin – each conflicting urge hid inside another like Russian nesting dolls. He was unable to tell for certain which feelings lay at the base of his heart, and which were only masking his truest needs.

All he knew was that he wanted Esme to see all of him. And even though he was a little frightened to show her everything, he knew it was the only way he would ever feel complete.

So he let her look.

He heard a soft whimper come from her, and she promptly pulled the sheet up to her lips. Was she worried? Afraid? Tempted? ...Thrilled?

Her reaction was unreadable, but he was determined to comfort whatever had caused it.

Reaching over to grasp her hand, he whispered, "Why must you hide yourself from me? You are too beautiful to hide."

Something in her eyes melted at his words, and the sheet in her hand melted right along with it. Esme trembled, her exquisitely bare torso glowing in the dim candlelight.

An unforeseen fear bubbled up inside of Carlisle. The sight of her body was so beautiful, but he was suddenly anxious that this might be the last time he would see it. "Please don't be afraid," he begged, his voice weak.

"I'm not afraid," she whispered back to him. Her voice was softer than his, but not without conviction. He was surprised to hear her sounding so sure, when her eyes told a different story.

Hesitant to continue at first, his hand connected with her hand, lacing his fingers between hers slowly. She breathed shakily as he pulled her hand closer, and her fingers began to wriggle nervously as she noticed his intended direction.

"Tell me to stop, and I will," he said, hoping with all his might that she wouldn't.

The tips of her fingers barely made contact with his skin, but it was like a stream of fire stretching through him from her slightest touch. Her name cracked in half as he tried to say it; he was speechless.

He tried to guide her, tried to show her the way to touch a man – but the second her fingers were on him, he barely remembered his own name. He suddenly thought it foolish that he was trying to _teach _her anything. Esme clearly already knew the way to touch a man – she knew more than he did.

He enjoyed it far too much, how thick and heavy he felt in her small hand. His eyes dared to watch her as she wrapped her hand around him, and the sight was sinfully beautiful. He could feel his lungs burning and his breaths breaking raggedly as his excitement mounted. His body was fast approaching that dangerous peak, and Esme's warm, innocent fingers were the instruments he needed to get there. Helplessly, he pressed his own hand firmly around hers, pushing her fingers deeper into his hardness.

The reaction that swept through him was urgent and hot – engorgement to the point of a blissful pain. His hand retreated at once, but hers was brave enough to stay behind.

The way she touched him was so...ambiguous. Her fingers were frustratingly shy, yet aggressively curious. Each movement of her fingers was unplanned and uncalculated, and that was precisely what made it all so thrilling. She was touching him as if he were a strange sculpture, as if she were testing his sturdiness, feeling for weak spots. Yet it did not feel like an inspection so much as an exploration. A sweet, careful, affectionate exploration of something entirely foreign and new.

All the while, he could tell that she was afraid to hold him too tightly, so it came as a wonderful shock when she finally allowed her fingers to squeeze ever so slightly around his growing girth. He clenched his jaw as the milky white warmth of his arousal blossomed on the tip of his manhood. Nothing had ever felt so revealing, so magnificently humiliating under the eyes of a woman.

Esme looked away at once as if she had just witnessed something unbearably indecent. And for some inexplicable reason, Carlisle was glowing because of it.

Filled with renewed strength, he gently grasped her quivering little hand and kissed every one of her fingers in thanks. Wasting no time, he opened his arms and hugged her body against his, ravishing her with caresses. Their limbs tangled seamlessly as they moved together – they were both paler than the moon, yet they each had subtle tints to their skin that set them apart. Only when their bodies were pressed against one another could these subtleties be seen. Esme's skin had a hue of human blush, and his, a twinge of gold. It was just the slightest difference in color, but it was as plain as day once they were close enough to see it. Carlisle thought the contrast was achingly lovely; they were a complimentary pair in every way.

Their movements were slow and patient, but also mysteriously exhausting. The quilts on the bed were so heavy they were like a third body, sharing the bed with them. Not too long after he'd taken Esme into his arms, Carlisle began to wonder how he could hold in the force of his desire for much longer. His neglected arousal took revenge on him, rising up firmly against Esme's soft hip beneath the covers. She gasped and curled her toes and fingers, squeezing her eyes shut in shyness.

He fell back into the pillows, happily weakened by her appealing reactions. Carlisle favored himself the defenseless one, more than eager to allow Esme the upper hand. Lord knows she knew just how to use it.

Her fingers traced filigree patterns into his skin, lovingly exploring his naked body with heightened confidence. Everything felt so _right, _so perfect, until she happened across that soft, weak little spot beneath his navel. Something sparked deep inside of him, like a flaming arrowhead pierced straight into his groin.

In an instant he was swelling furiously, eager and throbbing with need. He tried to warn her, but his voice was reduced to a raspy whimper. The broken sound of her name on his tongue only made it worse. In one final attempt to save himself, he groped for her hand where it rested by his hip. As he tried to push it out of the way, he accidentally swept her hand right into his lap. All it took was one brush of her velvet fingers, and his ache exploded.

His mind was lost completely as he began gushing like a fountain under Esme's helpless hand. It hadn't occurred to him right away, the effect such a mishap might have on his vulnerable wife. The consequences of his momentary loss of control were meaningless as he drowned contentedly in his pleasure. The bed beneath him seemed to mold lovingly to his body, the sheets slipping against his sides like cool waves grasping at the hot shore. It felt so wonderful to _finally _release the tension that had plagued him for years, here in this bed, with this unforgivably beautiful woman who loved him enough to touch him until he...

_Oh, God almighty._

His eyes snapped open when he came to his senses, the pleasure swiftly escaping his body in time for him to see the look of intense shock on Esme's face. Shame gripped him only for a moment. Deep down, Carlisle realized he could no longer feel shame for this. If this was the way he must show his wife that he loved her, then this was _not _shameful.

It was then when he understood, panting and spent beneath Esme's shadow, that she had conquered him. She had already won. Because here he was, pinned to the mattress, his skin slick with his own venom – and the evidence of her victory was all over her fingers. Her eyes were distant but all-knowing. Somewhere in her heart, she knew. She knew that in this moment, she was the one with all the power.

"Are you...?" His voice was barely a whisper as he tried to bring her back. The second he said the words, he'd forgotten what he'd intended to say.

The need in her eyes was overwhelming. Without any cares to what had just happened, he pulled her small body against his and burrowed into the covers.

The very bottom sheet on the mattress became a kind of map as they moved with each other, learning the many ways their bodies could intertwine. Every space on the bed sheets was charted as new territory – every wrinkle was a valley, every pile of pillows was a daunting mountain range, every accidental sparkle of venom was a pushpin for where they had been and where they will go again. There was an art to navigating this bed – _their _bed – a thrilling confinement in limiting their love to just a few layers of silk and cotton.

She touched places on his body that no one had ever touched before – places that were impossible for his own hand to reach, and places he hadn't dared to touch unless he was washing himself in the bath. The very center of his back, the underside of his knees, the curves beneath his buttocks and his thighs. Their motions were graceful, erotic, abstract. It was a complicated dance they performed between the sheets – a dance quite unlike the one they'd shared in a dimly lit music room while the gramophone played an old waltz. This was a different kind of dance, a dance that could not be learned in one night, and one that Carlisle believed could never be perfected. But he believed it was worth the struggle to try and perfect it anyway.

He drowned himself in her, as thoroughly as he could without a physical connection. Her body curved into his in the most incredible ways, and she did it all effortlessly, as if she'd been doing it every night of her life. She stunned him with those little things **– **quick thrilling moments where she did something shocking or uncharacteristic. Every so often he would feel that forbidden, soft wet spot between her thighs, and he would do everything in his power to restrain from plunging into her without prelude.

Instead, he took her head in his hands and held her dearly, and kissed her in a slow, lingering manner. Her lips were so familiar to him now – full and soft, and so loving. With every kiss she gave him, he realized how much he still needed that reassurance – a confirming touch, a sighing voice that told him, _"Yes, everything you see and feel and hear is yours...all yours..."_

She mirrored his look of awe as she cupped his cheeks in her gentle hands. He nuzzled against her open palm, craving the love and care she offered him through her simplest touch. He held her tightly as she kissed his forehead, then his neck, then his shoulders. Everywhere, all across his chest, she laid her kisses down like precious gifts, moving in a southbound path down his body. Her generosity made him weep.

When her tongue tasted the corner of his hip, she brought the fever back into his flesh. As much as he wanted her tongue to venture elsewhere, he was still worried what might become of him if she were that bold.

For now, this was enough. More than enough. Carlisle had waited hundreds of long, agonizing years for a woman to love him so intensely. To touch his body like it was something so rare and precious. To cherish him with her eyes, lips, and hands. To whisper reverent words of want into his ears, and beg him for _more._

_More of what?, _ he wondered shyly in the back of his chastity-clouded mind. The word would sometimes slip from her tongue, and he doubted she even noticed she was saying it so often.

He gave her as much as he could **– **as much as she would let him. She had more control over him than she must have realized, despite the fact that his physical strength had surpassed hers. She clearly wanted _him _to be the center of attention in that moment, devoting herself to decorate _his _body with caresses and kisses. Her kisses were most thorough when she reached his neck, her lips sucking gently at his scars as if they were coated with sugar. At first her intensity made him uncomfortable, but he quickly learned to accept the love she offered him. Even so, it would always baffle him that she loved him for being a vampire; for making _her_ into a vampire.

Then again, they wouldn't be together on this night if he had not bitten her.

The thought gave Carlisle a hard, masculine burst of power. Pressing his lips roughly against Esme's, he turned her body beneath his and rose to dominance above her, his fingers tight around her wrists, his breath deepened by lust. He trailed his hands down her arms and across her belly, eager to feel every inch of her as she trembled beneath his weight.

"Oh, Esme... You're so soft, so precious... Please trust me?" He pleaded with her as his thumbs swirled firmly into her hipbones. She threw a wrench in his heart when her hands quickly covered her lap from view. Her pale, shapely thighs pressed together **– **so beautiful and tight and clenching **– **and he ached to be between them.

"I won't touch you, Esme. Not until you ask me to," he vowed in a whisper.

She shivered a little, he supposed out of relief. Her fingers retreated slowly from between her thighs, revealing the lovely pink bud he longed to see in bloom. His fingers began to flutter involuntarily against her hip, yearning to _feel _her. Seeing was incredible, but it just wasn't enough.

When she finally looked up at him, her eyes were not hesitant as he'd expected they would be. They were positively piercing.

"Touch me, Carlisle."

He rejoiced silently as he picked up her hand and prepared to touch her, never once parting their gazes. Nervousness flickered in her eyes, but it was nothing a few carefully placed kisses couldn't settle. He would do anything to keep her from changing her mind now.

He _had _to touch her.

Laying his hand flush against her creamy skin, he tenderly tried to move her leg aside. His stomach sank when she forcefully pressed her legs back together.

"I won't hurt you," he defended softly, hoping his sincerity would win her over. It was a daunting task, trying to earn a woman's trust. Carlisle suddenly felt threatened and competitive, even though there were no other males in the room to challenge him for the prize. Esme was only his, but her constant little setbacks kept his feral instincts alive and thrumming.

The sad part was, she had no idea what she was doing to him.

She was so irresistible, her body still soft and rounded from carrying child, yet slender and petite from her youth. The candlelight spilled across her skin, making her belly shine like the smooth golden moon of autumn. Against the blue and white pillows, her skin was honey-colored with a soft glow, courtesy of the candle on her nightstand.

Her hand covered her face, embarrassed that she had instinctively resisted his advances. He knew she had no concept of how beautiful she looked to him, and that nearly enraged him.

"Try again?" he murmured, fighting to hide his frustration through gentle tones.

Relief raced through his chest when she nodded her consent. But he had learned from his mistake the first time around. Now, he gave her no warning before letting his fingers claim her.

He gasped at how soft she was **– **and he had only touched her thigh. His body screamed its readiness at that single touch, and he was thankful that Esme's eyes were closed when it happened.

A baking heat like the desert sun crept around his bare neck as he slid his finger over her flesh. He hadn't thought she would be this wet; it amazed him. She let out a terribly arousing sound **– **an almost musical moan from the back of her throat **– **and pride pushed him to greater lengths.

Confident that she was ready for him to take the next step, Carlisle allowed his curious fingers to venture further between Esme's thighs. He could see her more clearly now that she had relaxed, and the sight of her was almost as thrilling as the way she felt. She was bright pink in color **– **a rare, stirring shade of pink that was not found in nature. He thought she looked like a rose with all but two petals plucked off. The only difference was, he knew how to touch a rose. He knew nothing about how to touch a woman.

But that did not stop him from touching her.

At first he was scared to let his fingers penetrate her at all. Her flesh was moist and surprisingly pliant, much softer and smoother than the sculpting clay he was used to handling. He had absolutely nothing to compare her to, nothing to spark any familiarity in his mind. He was patient with himself, allowing himself a minute to become comfortable with the ways she responded to his touch. It was so different than touching himself. He had no clue where pleasure built in a woman's body. At first glance there was nothing visibly begging for his caress, nothing to rival the obviousness of a man's arousal. The female arousal was almost entirely hidden, much more mysterious and elusive. The only evidence she offered was her warmth and her wetness, both of which intensified greatly with his every stroke.

"Let me look into your eyes," he commanded softly, needing to see firsthand how his touch was affecting her. She obeyed him immediately, lifting her wilting eyelids for him as he pressed his fingers against her.

The sight of a gorgeous woman sprawled out beneath him on a bed of silk, writhing and wanton, was so surreal. Even so, it took a while before he was brave enough to slip his finger inside of her **– **and he did not find her entrance right away. Like everything else, Esme unwittingly made him work for what he sought.

Once he felt her inside, all he wanted to do was sob. She was slick and tender, like the inside of a fig fruit, but her scent was even sweeter. Heavens, if she felt this wonderful around his finger, he couldn't dare to imagine what she would feel like around his...

His thought tapered off as she suddenly gripped his finger like a velvet vice, arching lovingly toward his hand. Carlisle's breath caught in his throat as he felt his finger being pulled deeper into her. _Merciful Lord, how deep was she?_

He decided to test her depth by pushing two fingers gently further. She clenched her thighs and moved her head from side to side each time he prodded shyly inside of her. But he still found no end to the passage.

Tiny muscles in his belly he didn't even know that he had began to pulse with purpose as he explored her. He swallowed hard when he attempted to stretch his fingers within her, excitedly dreading the moment he would be inside her body, having to hold out long enough to pleasure her.

He savored every sound she made like a greedy child who sits in his secret corner with a box of candies. Each one was more enticing than the last.

He wanted more than this. He wanted her legs wrapped around him, wanted her heat and her breath and her kisses on his skin. He wanted to writhe and churn, to bury himself inside her with the full power of his newfound masculinity. For the first time, Carlisle felt completely awakened and alive, fired up with love and desperation. Against all reason and experience, he wanted to take complete possession of Esme, to brand her as his wife using every ounce of strength and passion he ever withheld. Breathless with want, he willingly embraced these sweet, violent, unfamiliar longings.

Terrified by his burgeoning desire, Carlisle slowly tugged his fingers out of her, stunned at how tightly she tried to hold them inside. The sight of his own two fingers, gleaming wet with Esme's arousal, gave him another fierce charge of need. Her scent was electrifying, like feminine fire on his fingertips. In an instinct he'd never been able to control, he self-consciously burrowed his hand in the sharp curve of his hip, twisting his wet fingers shyly against his skin.

His throat became uncomfortably tight, just like the muscles in his thighs, as he tried to close his eyes and rein himself in. His eyes fluttered open to see Esme's lovely face upon the blue pillow, filled with love and confusion as he reached out and touched her cheek.

Unable to resist, he bowed his head and thrust his tongue between her soft red lips. He ravaged her, mouth to mouth, performing all manner of obscene motions he yearned to mirror with his hips against hers. It was torture to break their kiss, but he had saved words for this very moment, words he needed to speak now before he was rendered incapable of speech.

"Fear nothing, my love," he murmured to his quivering wife. Her eyes were drunk with longing, but twinkling with doubt. He ran his hand across her stomach, admiring how large it looked as it covered her small body. "The union between a man and his wife is nothing like what you have felt before," he assured her in a voice so sure, he wondered where it came from. "It is not shameful, or painful," he whispered as his fingers ghosted reverently along the swell of her hips, "...it is sacred."

He wondered with a thrill if it was his choice of words that had done it. All at once he was being consumed by her flustered and flowering need, her arms slithering up his strong back, like vines embracing a sturdy tree. She still refused to meet his eyes.

"Esme... Do you want this?" He was nearly breathless as her eyes dipped below his waist, watching as he cupped his engorged desire with one trembling hand.

It wasn't enough. He needed Esme's touch.

Unwilling to wait for her answer, he boldly reached down and found her hand, swiftly arranging her fingers around his swelling erection. Her soft, shaky touch ignited an endless fount within him, and his need came coursing through, hard and fast.

"Yes," Esme sighed at last, the need evident in her voice. Carlisle was barely able to contain the hot silk that was building up inside of him. Helpless, he felt it slaver onto her hand, a beautiful betrayal to his control.

He guided her fingers up and down his length, working his skin like soft clay. "Tell me you want me... inside of you..." He could barely say the words, even in the privacy of this bedroom, with only Esme's ears listening. He could not understand why he was saying things like this in the first place, where they had come from, or how he had worked up the courage to utter them out loud.

Esme gasped at his forwardness, and her fingers suddenly gripped him with punishing strength. Carlisle nearly collapsed as he cried out, overcome with agony. Beneath him, Esme seemed lost in a dream of her own, panting like a cheetah and bucking her hips timidly upward, her lashes batting like hummingbirds' wings.

"I want you... Oh, I want you..."

She sounded like a whole different woman. If his eyes had been closed when she'd said it, he would never have believed it was Esme. Could it be that _he_ had turned this kind, innocent young woman into a harlot?

His breath left his body in harsh waves, making what little space was left between their faces unbearably warm. "Feel me, Esme," he commanded, provoked by the sensual glow in her gaze. He pushed himself into her delicate hand, practicing for what was soon to come. "Feel what you have done to me."

She tore her eyes away from him, stricken by his perverse demands. Carlisle reeled with pride, savoring the way he could so easily affect her with his quiet voice and forward touch. Feeling ever more bold, he found her thumb and pushed it gently into the tip of his length. She gasped his name in utter shock as he soaked her finger with the evidence of his approaching release.

Dangerously aroused by the sound of his name as she touched him, Carlisle flung his hips against her hand, but she cruelly pulled away. He instead bruised the bed beneath him with the force of his aimless thrust.

His body shook with frustration and pent-up pleasure, infuriated by Esme's self-conscious teasing. He did not want to be buried in those sheets; he knew they were nothing compared to the warm silk inside his wife. With supreme effort, he managed to lift his heavy body over her, determined that this time he would claim her once and for all.

"I need you, Esme," he whimpered, grappling frantically at her hand in her lap until she surrendered.

Her fingers finally moved out of the way, revealing the burning pink center of her body. As her fair, slender little legs slowly parted, he had never felt more invited in his life. He caressed her thighs tenderly until her legs fell limply and helplessly to the sides, all integrity relinquished for his sake.

Feeling like the very embodiment of divinity, Carlisle settled his hips between Esme's open legs. He closed his eyes in bliss as his fire stroked hers. His mind was in a fog, and he had no idea what to do. Not one of the books in his extensive library had offered him any answers for how to proceed in this moment.

He retreated hesitantly at first, confused and enchanted by the feeling of Esme's warm, wet flesh. His heartstrings tugged him back in momentary doubt; she felt too small and fragile to be penetrated. He couldn't do it...

But oh, how he wanted to. He knew that hurting her was perhaps inevitable, but when she looked up at him, he thought she was begging him to give her exactly what he desired. Carlisle was utterly torn. With his hips poised desperately above Esme's open lap, he had never felt more like a virgin in his life.

These were all feelings he'd never felt before, and they were sabotaging him from all angles, too many attacking him at once. All he could do to settle his nerves was hold her close, tenderly embracing her with his arms around her back. Without warning, he tried once again to find his way inside of her.

She sounded off softly, mixing whimpers of pleasure and pain.

"Do not look away from me," he whispered, unaware of where the words came from. "Look into my eyes."

Staying still was nearly impossible when Esme's gaze locked onto his. A dark, dangerous instinct urged him to pound into her without waiting for her compliance, but his compassionate heart again came to his rescue. He may have been a virgin, but he'd read quite enough to know the natural ways of the sexes. Deep down Carlisle knew a man wanted to take a woman by siege, and this comforted him. He could not think of himself in the wrong for fancying force, but rather recognize that he was in the right for sacrificing his wants for Esme's.

And that was sex truly was. A sacrifice.

_She_ would be the one who decided what he did, and when he did it. He was hers to command.

"Esme?" he queried breathlessly, shuddering with anticipation.

She bent back to accommodate him, her eyes hooded and glowing as she raised her fingers to touch his face. She slid her fingers across his jaw, as if he were something precious and breakable. And that was when he knew. She was giving him permission to enter her.

Carlisle aspired to be everything for Esme, right here, on this bed. He was her hero and her victim. Her guardian and her follower. Her doctor and her patient. Her teacher and her pupil. Her servant _and_ her master...

He could be all of this and more, now he was sure. She was offering him the chance to show her just how perfectly they matched, just how dearly she would need him every night for the rest of their lives together. The promise of mind-altering pleasure was unbearable to postpone any longer.

When he pushed his hips down this time, he found her private passage. His body relaxed with relief **– **all but one integral part of him which instead stiffened with purpose. He cradled her back with his hands and lifted her from the bed, pulling her closer until he pressed inside of her.

He stopped cold after a mere inch or so, unable to continue when the sound of her painful gasp filled the room. Holding still for such a climactic, life-changing moment was the sweetest torture he had ever known. He felt as if he had dipped the tip of his sex into a pool of melted candle wax. It was his first taste of copulation, and it felt too delicious to be at all moral. The promise of more seemed too absurdly wonderful to be true.

Shaking with emotion, he cupped her cheek in his hand and whispered to her as he slowly pressed in further. "I have you... stay with me, Esme... shhh, I have you..." His words strung together senselessly; all but the sensation of her flesh consuming him inch by inch was swept away from his mind. He told her that he loved her, he murmured her name, over and over; anything he could think of that would encourage her to keep accepting him... He would not stop until he was fully hidden inside of her.

At last he knew the feel of a woman's body, and it was so different than what he'd imagined it would be. She was curved, not straight at all; he shifted and bent to fit her as much as she stretched and arched to fit him. In many ways, she resisted his force, but at the same time she was so yielding, so lush and welcoming. His most thrilling discovery was that she was deceptively strong **– **like a thick, glossy rope wrapped many, many times around him – hotter than fire, softer and wetter than the shores of Lake Cordial, and tighter than the fist of a guardian angel.

He wanted so terribly to look down, to see the beautiful, physical evidence that he was joining himself with Esme. But he didn't look. He couldn't. He knew it would finish him in an instant.

For an inexplicable moment, Carlisle had a vivid recollection of how lonely he had been before he had met Esme. It made no sense to him that such a memory would resurface at the peak of what would soon become the most pleasurable experience of his life. Yet of all times, he felt it now more than ever **– **a heart-dropping reminder of what it had felt like to be without companionship in the world.

He choked back a sob and settled somewhere halfway inside of her, unable to move, and thoroughly panicked at the thought that she might reject him at any moment and cry for him to pull away from her. He couldn't lose this when he had come this far.

Just when the feat seemed impossible, Esme saved him with one touch. Blindly, she pulled his hand away from her cheek and pointed his fingers toward the aching button of nerves perched just above their joined flesh. His entire body warmed with a sense of grand entitlement when he realized what she was asking of him. He could not afford to wait any longer. All it took was a gentle brush of his fingertips to initiate a swift and sudden miracle. The very instant his fingers touched her there, he slipped effortlessly deeper.

Excitement swirled through his belly at his discovery. His fingers trembled uncontrollably, elated to find this one magic spot on her body that caused unspeakable things to happen with just the slightest touch. Carlisle felt a hot surge of confidence, reacquainted with the sweet, rich taste of control.

"Take me deeper," he begged. He flushed at the sound of his own voice **– **and more so at his words **– **that he had dared to say them without an ounce of shame or reproach.

He had never felt a need as urgent or as primal as what he felt right now. It was nothing like his lust for blood **– **in the heat of the moment, his body claimed _this_ was stronger. Utter completeness was literally inches within his reach. He had only to listen to the demands of his body, and to trust his wife to indulge every one of them.

Carlisle was fortunate to have such a faithful wife.

Esme beckoned him deeper with a slow, sensual arch of her hips, her full lips quivering in the wake of her fulfillment. Her legs slipped eagerly around his waist, and her delicate ankles all but stabbed the backs of his knees, knocking him forward.

He gasped at her violent grip, both from the outside and the inside. With her final nudge he felt himself bump the very deepest point within her. He savored his victory in secret at first, feeling like a hero who had reached the pinnacle of an impossible quest. She had demanded a great length to be filled, but he had filled it **– **every inch of it **– **and he was willing to fill even more.

"Finally..." The sigh that left his open lips was heavy and long **– **a warm, dark melody of unadulterated gratification. "Ohh...finally."

He hadn't meant to say the word out loud, but somehow he heard himself saying it, or rather sobbing it, as he luxuriated into her womb. _Finally_, he thought a thousand times again in the privacy of his heart. The more he repeated it to himself, the more feverish it made him feel.

Piping hot pleasure coursed through every muscle and bone in his body, making him collapse into his mate. She moved the tiniest bit and he was overwhelmed by the wondrous mélange of clenching, pulsing sensations caused by her movement. It was all he could do not to drill himself straight through her exquisite body. He was so swollen he was almost in tears.

He whispered frantic things to her, things he would probably wish he had kept to himself once he came to his senses. But right now he didn't give a damn.

"Can you feel me?"

Even in his current state, Carlisle couldn't believe he had asked Esme such a question. His tongue belonged to a different man, a man who had given himself up to his passion's whim.

To his unruly delight, Esme curved her hips against his, shuddered soundly, and whispered _"yes."_

He almost spilled right then.

"What do I feel like?" he demanded in a soft, hungry voice, no longer caring how imprudent his interrogation was. He had a desperate and sincere curiosity to quench...

Though his questions still made his face burn, he took comfort in knowing that Esme was the only one who had heard them. She was the only one who had to answer to him. These words and these whispers would never leave their bedroom.

She whispered erotic descriptions of what he felt like as he learned how to move inside of her, and when he asked her to look into his eyes, he could see the thousands of ways he had saved her, just as she had saved him.

His fingers kneaded the smooth flesh of her thighs as she cradled his hips, pulling him nearer with an impressive strength that threatened to shatter him. The tenderness that had carried them this far abruptly sloughed off, as easily as the silk sheets he could feel falling away from their bodies. Carlisle braced himself against the mattress and began to thrust shamelessly into the first woman he had ever made love to. Where he had once been timid he was now unreserved, rocking against her small frame with each forceful movement of his hips. Wisps of blond fell into his eyes and his breath grew harsh and panting. Esme only encouraged him. She welcomed his sudden fervor and all but shoved her body to his, her nails digging into his shoulders, her head tossed back as tortured whimpers spilled from her sweet lips.

He had imagined making love to Esme like this so many times, with such thoughtless and voracious passion. But he had never dared to assume she would welcome such ferocity from him. His unmeasured, forward thrusts were interrupted every so often by a swift circular motion, an instinctive swivel of his hips that somehow helped him to acquire an even greater depth. With every new discovery he made, he reeled with delight, thrilled to be learning the elusive art of intercourse so quickly.

He sucked in a long breath of air, summoning what tiny threads of restraint he could muster to hold out for just a little longer. He was making love to his wife, proud and powerful and confident in a way he had never been before. The knowledge, and indeed the sight, of what he was doing made him feel incredible. He felt he could have gone on forever this way, groaning and gasping, and thrusting into her with tender fury until he imploded from the obscene amount of pleasure racing through him.

The coarseness of it all, the rough and primal ways in which he possessed her made him feel as if he were committing the most egregious sins. Yet, in all his years, Carlisle had never felt closer to heaven.

He could just barely hear the faint cracking of antique wood from the bed posts as he thrust, as the release built up within him like lava inside a dormant volcano. His first touch had been gentle and shy, but now he felt bold enough to let his fingers treat her flesh as if she were one of the strings on his violin. He would make sweet music with her. He would fill the night with her song.

She inhaled his every exhale, savoring the agony of their fleeting connection, feverishly warm and excruciatingly soft as he slipped in and out of her. Her arms curled snugly around his neck, securing her body to his, effortlessly submitting herself to his rhythm. They were so open before one another, giving everything they had to the other, and so filled with completeness that the ache of solitude resurrected in their hearts. Together they watched their solitude as it was trampled in the wake of their humble victory. Wrapped in each other's arms, they finally found the cure to destroy it once and for all.

The spasms swelled to heavenly heights, and as if something had snapped inside of her, Esme thrashed in a gorgeous fit of hysteria, her eyes fluttering, body convulsing, and lips stretched in a blissful cry. In the midst of her chaotic climax, Carlisle found his wife's pleading lips and placed upon them the passionate compressions they sought from his own.

His eyes closed when he came to share her bliss, and all he could see was that velvet stretch of blackness before the ovation. As she pulsed relentlessly around him, a riot of kaleidoscopic colors exploded across the darkness behind his eyelids. They swelled and ebbed in delicate patterns of pink and turquoise and the ever-present gold. In one strong stroke, he sentenced the fire of his venom to burn endlessly within her womb. He filled her with the patience of a blooming flower – starving for sun, thirsty for water – and with the fury of molten lava.

He collapsed into her with ragged cries of ecstasy, utterly shameless. He wanted Esme to hear and see it all – every hitch in his breath, every shudder in his voice, every sob in his throat. His body shook with streams of hot release, filling her until she could hold no more, and he began to spill out onto the bed.

Carlisle kissed Esme several times, and her passionate response overwhelmed him – she was still so filled with fire. She could never burn out. He sputtered senseless words of worship in the wake of his climax, vulnerable whimpers and groans that were sweetened by the sound of her name. He thought he could hear her saying that she loved him, but those kinds of words meant so little to him now. After what she had just _done _for him, _to him..._ any spoken words were irrelevant.

Her eyes told him everything he needed to know. How deeply she loved him, how intensely she appreciated the pleasure he had given her **– **and how very aware she was of the pleasure _she _had given _him._

Just as daylight was not complete without sunlight, Carlisle knew he could never be complete without Esme.

He slipped reluctantly from her body, bruised pink from the forces of her love for him. It shocked him to see how drastically his flesh could change; how a vampire's body became almost human when making love.

He now felt a keen, bone-deep exhaustion all through his body **– **a sensation unlike anything he had ever felt in his immortal life. This, Carlisle thought, must be something like what sleeping had felt like. It was an escape from the world around him, a complete disregard and unconcern for anything outside this dim blue bedroom. His world, for this moment, did not extend beyond these four posts of his canopy bed.

It was such a strange feeling, being bundled beside the soft body of a woman in bed. The intimacy between them heightened with every breath they shared, becoming so strong it was almost unbearable. It was something like the awkward silence that follows an embarrassing moment, only this kind of awkward silence was beautiful and thrilling. Both of them were speechless, having nothing left of themselves to give.

Carlisle could think of only one way to prolong this beautiful, agonizingly intimate silence... but Esme had thought of another.

He thought she was going to kiss him on his neck, but instead she bit him. Gentle, then hard. He did not feel like a strong, indestructible man when her teeth sank into his skin, and he was surprised to find that he deeply enjoyed the feeling. It was only fair that Esme feel it too. They communicated more clearly through soft bites and tender kisses than they did through words.

Somehow they ended up tangled perfectly beneath the covers, trapped in each other's arms with their faces mere inches apart. He wanted to say so many things, but nothing could stand as the sum for what they had done on this night. The night was still young, and eternity still waited eagerly on the horizon. Carlisle had only to think of all the times they would perform this sacred act as a married couple, and his heart overflowed with joy and disbelief.

He sighed and laid his cheek against hers, relishing the forfeiture of personal space between them. "You're mine now, Esme. Only mine, forever," he said, again pleased and surprised to hear such forbidden boldness in his once timid voice.

With wholehearted conviction, she whispered back, "I am yours."

He had unlocked her, and she revealed to him the world he had been searching for since the beginning of his existence. She showed him meaning and truth, and he showed her hope and light.

He hid nothing from her in this world – even the parts he was not proud of, even the side of him she had only dared to imagine was real. He showed her every part of him, from the surface to the deepest, darkest crevices of his being. In return for these gifts, she showed him everything of herself, hiding nothing from him as he hid nothing from her. She was so dangerously willing, and he so dangerously accepting that by dawn there would be no crevice of their bodies left unseen, no corner of their hearts left undiscovered.

In a distant, dreamlike sense, it felt as if they were running together, hand in hand, rushing through autumn leaves and silver monsoons and deep, black nights without a moon to guide them. Carlisle wondered if the world had tilted in the wrong direction, allowing them to dip their toes into a new, unexplored kind of darkness. Neither of them had beating hearts, but something else was pounding. Something had offered them a strong, leaping pulse to share.

He knew that it was not lust. Lust no longer existed in this world. Lust had no place in this bed. To acknowledge such a shallow feeling would be laughable, condemning. The attraction, the irresistible pull they felt toward one another was something far more sacred than that. Here, it was as if they had never known anyone outside of each other; as if they had both been born here and never left. Their limbs slipped together in a frustrating tangle, losing all of their rights to be individual, independent, solitary.

Under these sheets, solitude was a sin.

It was hunger verses fullness, the giving and receiving of gifts, the feeling of being lost in a foreign island, words like "rejoice" and "understand" and "desperation" and "tranquility", the acceptance of chaos, and the utter rejection of self-reliance.

It was like the irrational _guilt _that one felt from pulling a fistful of grass out of the earth for no reason at all. Or like writing one's deepest secrets in blood on the wall of a public institution, and savoring the shame. It was like scavenging for the last drop of wine, though the goblet was clearly empty.

During some soft, silent part of the night, Carlisle recalled something he had once said to Esme.

_"I am a man, and you are a woman. We need be nothing more than that."_

And they truly did not need to be anything more. Just _being _was more than enough.

Every kiss was reverent, and every touch was pure. Their union was sacred and well-earned **– **the result of countless sleepless nights, and unanswered prayers, and hours spent fruitlessly daydreaming by the fireplace, and lonely journal pages, and shy conversations, and silent longings. In all his wanderings, Carlisle had never encountered anything more fascinating or more complicated than his love for Esme.

It was like a stained glass window, with thousands of tiny pieces and colors all painstakingly placed together to create something beautiful. Carlisle took pride in his work of art, knowing well that he could not have created something so perfect without Esme. She was the sun that shined through his stained glass window. She was the light that speared through the darkness in his soul.

* * *

**There you have it. Behind Stained Glass has reached its conclusion!**

**It has been an absolute pleasure and an honor to write this story for you all. You were the most delightful and appreciative readers I could have asked for, and I dearly hope that many of you will consider following my other stories in the future. :)**

**Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your reviews and support! I certainly could have never finished this story without all of you!**

**Mackenzie**


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